


Baby, Won't You Please Come Home

by Ray_Writes



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Season/Series 01 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Oliver returns to Starling City after the Undertaking only to discover that he's not the only one who has absented it; Laurel Lance has seemingly vanished with barely a trace for the last four months. As he struggles to piece together the mystery of what caused her to flee the city they both call home, Oliver must also ask himself if he can make things right after leaving the woman he loves a second time.If he can find her at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I've been toying with the last few weeks. Everything is plotted out and I've completed about the next chapter and a half, so expect semi-regular updates at least for now until the new semester starts. This is not my first attempt at writing for these characters or universe, but it is my first attempt at writing this particular pairing which I have grown to love over the course of the show. Thanks very much for giving this story a read, and I'd love to hear any comments!

It was nearing midnight by the time Oliver made the drive up to Queen Manor, a place he hadn’t seen now for nearly six months and had been standing empty for all of that time due to his mother’s incarceration. Thea was still at the club she now owned and he could grudgingly admit to himself his sister had likely been crashing at her boyfriend’s while he’d been away. He realized he’d also forfeited any authority in deciding whether or not that arrangement continued by seemingly not caring the last several months. If she did choose to come home on her own, however, he’d be more than happy. And hopefully after the trial, they could all try being a family again.

Of course his mother’s upcoming court date was now in considerable question due to the murder of the ADA by the Hoods, along with the mayor. From what little he’d been sent by their lawyer, Jean seemed to think the terrible attack, while a blow to the city and its citizens’ confidence in its institutions, would perhaps benefit them in the long run; Adam Donner had supposedly been taking a hardline stance about his mother’s sentencing. It would be wrong to feel relief at a man’s death, but he also wouldn’t regret too badly the fact that he had not been present to stop the Hoods that night.

He was padding down the long hall to his room when a knock downstairs interrupted the quiet. With a dubious look at his watch, he retraced his steps to the front door.

“Detective—I’m sorry, Officer Lance, what can I do for you at this hour?” Oliver worked to keep his tone perfectly pleasant, even if he was unsettled. He could only think of one reason the man might have driven out here so late and it was the Vigilante. Even if Lance had turned around on the issue he wasn’t keen on the idea of him knowing his identity.

But the former detective didn’t have that familiar suspicious air to him. In fact he looked beseeching as he answered, “Well, you could tell me where my daughter is for a start.”

Oliver drew back sharply. “What?”

“So you don’t know,” Lance continued, like he’d been bracing himself for the possibility before Oliver had even opened his mouth. “Well that’s fantastic, only lead I had left. Long shot anyway.” The older man shook his head and was already backing up off the stoop. “Sorry to bother you.”

“Mr. Lance.” Oliver just held back from reaching out to stop the other man. “Has something happened? I haven’t seen Laurel since- since I got back.”

He hadn’t worked up the nerve to seek her out since his return, since he’d left all over again without a real goodbye. And when she hadn’t done the same, he’d thought that had been a deliberate choice on her part. A silent message. But now something was wrong, otherwise her father wouldn’t be here.

Lance didn’t seem all that impressed. “Yeah, well you wouldn’t have, would you?”

“Why don’t you come in and explain,” he suggested, stepping back to allow him into the Manor.

Lance followed him to the sitting room, but remained standing in front of the coffee table and paced as he began to speak. “It was about a month after you’d left. After the earthquake. Nothing had seemed different. Wrong. I mean, yeah, everything with Merlyn and losing her work like that—but she’s Laurel, you know? She’d done all this before, never let it stop her.”

“That’s Laurel,” he agreed, about all he could do. Every word the other man spoke set him further and further on edge and he had to reign himself in not to snap at the officer to just get to the point already. But Quentin Lance was usually not one to mince words, so if he was doing it now he had to be shaken. Badly.

“And it wasn’t like she didn’t have offers. Told me the DA’s office was looking to set up a meeting. She was just tying up some loose ends, returning all the paperwork they got out of CNRI, finishing what they could of people’s cases. Long hours, always busy. I thought it was probably best for her to keep her nose to the grindstone—God knows it’s the better of my vices. If I had had any idea she wasn’t—”

“Mr. Lance,” he cut him off as gently as he could, “I’m sure this wasn’t your fault. If you could just tell me what happened.”

The other man gave a helpless shrug. “She disappeared. No word, no note. Left her cell and her bank cards. There’s been no sign of her for,” the man’s face practically crumpled as he confessed, “four months.”

Oliver sat hard on the arm of the sofa. Four months. _Four months_. He was staring at the opposite wall, hardly able to process the information. But what little part of his brain still seemed to be working immediately spun off into the darkest corners his mind could possibly dredge up. All that time unaccounted for, anything could have happened. Anything.

“Was she taken?” He managed to drag his eyes back to Lance just in time to see a grim shake of the head.

“There were clothes missing from her closet and dresser, toiletries gone, no food in the cabinets.

Whatever happened, it was planned. She’d have had to take out money, but without my badge the bank won’t tell me a damn thing. If I report her missing they’ll splash her name all over the news because of her connection to the Hood and to top it all off they’ll put someone else in charge of the investigation,” he snarled.

It was clear these were things the former detective had tossed around in his own head over and over, likely without much of anyone to talk to. Laurel had always been the one there for her father, after all. Lance had tried to come up to him only just the other day, after the attack at Queen Consolidated, but he’d been busy speaking with Isabel Rochev. Had he been trying to tell Oliver about his daughter’s disappearance only to be rebuffed? Oliver had simply had no idea. Diggle and Felicity had had nothing to say about any of this. How could they not have mentioned?

“Have you talked to her friends, colleagues?” Oliver attempted to refocus. “Joanna?”

“Yeah,” the other man answered. “Yeah, she said Laurel called off sick a couple of days in a row right before she disappeared. Nobody thought anything of it since she’d been working herself so hard.”

“But she didn’t tell you about feeling ill?” He managed to push himself back onto his feet. “Did she go to a doctor’s office?”

“No and no. Look, I just came here to ask if you’d had any word from her or- or seen her.”

Oliver stilled. “Why would you think I’d seen her? I was out of contact with everyone here.”

“I know, just like I know that wherever you were wasn’t some European ski lodge ‘cause I called every one of them I could find a number to.” Lance let that hang in the air between them for a moment. Then with a heavy sigh he turned to go.

“Mr. Lance,” he called out again, and the other man paused. “If Laurel had gotten in touch with me, if she’d come to me for help, there is _nothing_ I wouldn’t do. But I wouldn’t hide her from her father.”

Lance looked back at him over his shoulder. “Nice to know you care so much, Queen.”

“Laurel cares,” he stated. Even with the knowledge that this was seemingly done of her own volition, the knot of worry clenched in his chest hadn’t lessened. If anything, it was all the worse knowing that she had chosen to cause her father this kind of worry. What could have been so terrible to cause Laurel Lance to flee the city she had defended and tried to save long before he ever put on a hood?

Lance gave a short nod before seeing himself out, and Oliver sank back down onto the sofa. Each possibility he considered seemed more implausible than the next. He didn’t have enough information. Apparently Lance didn’t either. But whether the man had asked for it or not, there were certain doors Oliver Queen could open that police officers could not. And the doors he himself couldn’t open…a vigilante always could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we are with chapter two. Thanks so much again for all the comments so far, I'm happy to see quite a few of you are already intrigued! This chapter's still a bit on the short side, and pretty much covers the span on the Arrow 2x02 episode.  
> I should also let you know that while Oliver's POV will definitely be prevalent throughout the fic, we will be getting sections of each chapter from different perspectives. I have a tendency to like to get into multiple characters' heads over the course of my writing, but the fic as a whole will be in third-person limited. If at any point you are confused, just let me know in the comments and I will work on clarifying that.  
> Without further ado, please enjoy!

Oliver sat in his new office with his chin resting on folded hands. If he weren’t so preoccupied he’d probably note how strange it was to be on this side of the desk, distant memories of lounging around drinking sodas while his father worked rising in his mind’s eye. But that would simply be a distraction.

Diggle stood just a little to the side. It was clear he knew something was up, but Oliver didn’t intend to have this conversation twice and the other man was patient enough to wait for their missing teammate.

He checked his watch again. This was getting ridiculous.

Finally the door opened and Felicity hurried through. “Sorry, sorry, just had to explain to my supervisor why our CEO wanted to see me instead of her to talk about the IT department.”

“That’s not important right now,” he dismissed. Obviously it was an inconvenience he was going to have to find a solution to, but that could wait. “Why didn’t either of you tell me?”

“Tell you what, Oliver?” Digg asked.

“That Laurel was missing.” The look the other two exchanged showed that this was just as much news to them as it had been to him last night. “How could you not have heard?”

“Wasn’t keeping tabs on her,” was Diggle’s answer. “Guess we should’ve been.” His friend held his gaze with a significant look that Oliver was the first to break.

“When did she go missing?” Felicity was already tapping away at her tablet. “She wasn’t taken hostage by the Hoods or someone, too, right?”

“Four months ago.”

Her fingers stilled. “Oh.”

“Lance is pretty sure she left on her own. But without a note or a new address we can’t be certain. And it’s just not like Laurel.”

“Yeah, that’s more your MO,” Felicity remarked. When he said nothing she looked up with a quick, “Sorry. But, uh, it’s going to be pretty hard to find a trail this cold unless she has her phone on her or is using a credit card—”

“She left both of them behind,” he cut her off, rising from the desk to go stand by the window. From up here he could see almost the entirety of Starling; as a kid he’d loved it, but looking out over his home now it somehow seemed…lacking. Like it wasn’t really home anymore, not when it was missing someone so important.

“I should have come back sooner,” Oliver finally spoke aloud the words that had kept him awake half the night.

“Now he gets it,” was Felicity’s comment.

Diggle was a little more diplomatic. “You couldn’t have known, man. And look, it might take a while, but we’ll go back and look through what we can. See if Lance missed anything.”

“He’s pretty sure she took money out before she disappeared, but he can’t get at the records because of his demotion.”

“Ooh, which bank does she use?” asked Felicity. “I can find the withdrawal.”

“Actually I have a slightly more legal way of finding that out,” he told them. Oliver checked the time again and nodded once to himself. “I’ll be taking an early lunch.”

\---

“Mr. Steele, your 11:15 is here.”

“Show him in at once,” Walter requested, already standing to come around the desk and shake the hand of his former stepson. “Oliver, a pleasure to see you, of course. How is everything at the company?”

“It’s been fine so far. I’m learning on the job, so to speak,” the younger man informed him with a wry smile. He had to privately wonder if Oliver was now regretting turning down the opportunity to get some hands-on experience running the Applied Sciences division last year. Of course, he doubted either of them at the time would have predicted the series of events that led to him running the entire business.

“I’m sorry to do this again so soon, but I needed to ask you a favor,” Oliver continued, looking slightly nervous as he added, “Actually it’s about one of your accounts here at the bank.”

Walter pursed his lips together for a moment. “Oliver, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you it’s simply not bank policy to divulge private information.”

“I know,” the younger man said quickly. “And I wouldn’t be asking, believe me, but—Laurel disappeared about a month after the Undertaking. Her father doesn’t think it was an abduction, but I’m worried she might have been in some kind of trouble if she left without any notice. I know it’s against the bank’s policy, but if there’s _any_ information you could give me I would be extremely grateful.”

Despite the pleading tone it was determination he saw in Oliver’s eyes. He was so very like his mother that way. And even if Walter hadn’t already known how the younger man cared for Laurel Lance, he would have been able to see it in this look alone.

With a deep breath he made his decision. Family, after all, was family. “This might take a few moments,” he told him, walking back over and typing out a short message. He gestured for the other man to take a seat while they waited. “I admit that the nature of the situation does seem troubling, but you should know that there are many people who have moved away since the Undertaking and closed out their accounts, whether at Starling National or one of our competitors.”

Oliver seemed to consider this, but didn’t look any less anxious for the information. Fortunately, a request from the CFO tended to be answered as quickly as possible.

“Let’s see…there was a withdrawal made on the twelfth of June—that’s odd.”

“Odd?”

He reread the statement with a furrowed brow. “The amount totaled to just under five-thousand dollars, well over what can be withdrawn without being reported. I’m so sorry, Oliver, this should have been flagged months ago.”

Oliver did not appear visibly upset, rather he seemed to be mulling the new information over. “Well, it’s like you said, a lot of people must have been making big withdrawals or closing out accounts. I’m sure it was just an oversight on the bank’s part.”

“I can assure you that it was. If Miss Lance had seemed under duress or had requested the teller not to report it, it would have been cause for suspicion.” His frown deepened as he admitted, “Unless she makes another withdrawal or deposit that is all I can tell you. I apologize if this wasn’t much help.”

“You’ve done everything you could,” Oliver countered. “Thank you, Walter.”

He stood to leave, but Walter felt he had to ask, “What do you intend to do now?”

His former stepson thought for a moment. “Figure out what Laurel Lance could do with five-thousand dollars in four months.”

\---

Thea looked up at the sound of footsteps coming around the bar. “Hey! I didn’t see you come in.”

“I had a secret entrance installed when I ran the club,” her brother explained. “Kidding.”

She rolled her eyes. “So what are you doing here? We’re not open yet, you know.”

“I think I remember what the hours are,” he replied, sobering slightly as he added, “Actually, I needed to ask you something. When was the last time you talked to Laurel?”

She blinked. “Uh, about four months ago. She stopped by the club.”

“And you haven’t seen or heard from her since?”

“No. I thought she was busy or that…maybe she didn’t want to talk after everything with Tommy and Mom being involved,” she answered, growing increasingly uneasy under Oliver’s serious stare. “Did- did something happen?”

“No one’s seen her in the last four months,” Oliver told her, and Thea’s jaw dropped. “She took out some money and disappeared.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Do we know why?”

“I wish I did, Speedy,” he said, voice weighed down with frustration and worry. “Do you remember what she came to see you about?”

She thought hard for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, actually she was asking about you.” Oliver’s eyes widened, and Thea continued with growing confidence, “She was wondering if I knew where you’d gone and when you’d be back. I told her about the ski trip and that I’d sent you a couple of emails, but that you hadn’t written back. I guess when you came back last week and everything with the Hoods I just forgot.”

If Laurel had been gone for four months it didn’t really matter that she had, but just thinking of that only increased her worry for the older woman. Laurel had been a constant in her life since she could remember, just like Tommy had been, and it was already hard enough having lost him. Thea couldn’t imagine what this must be like for Oliver, though.

“Emails,” her brother murmured, digging in a pocket for his phone and pulling up his inbox. Her own phone going off distracted her, however, and she frowned at the unfamiliar number before placing it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my name is Officer Ramirez. Am I speaking to Miss Queen?”

“Yes. Yeah, this is Thea Queen.”

“We have a Roy Harper down here at the station—”

“Of course that's where he is,” she groaned. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up and then looked to her brother. “Listen, can we put this on hold for just a little bit? My idiot boyfriend’s gotten himself booked again.”

Oliver looked like he hadn’t heard for a moment. In fact he was staring down at his phone with a completely blank expression from what little she could see.

“Ollie?”

“What?” He glanced up sharply. “Uh, right. How about I ask Mr. Diggle if he can give us a lift to the station?”

Thea gave him a half-smile and a quick hug before grabbing up her purse. “Thanks.”

\---

It had been an exhausting few days. Between taking on China White and her new recruit Bronze Tiger while doing his best to keep Thea’s boyfriend from getting himself killed, Oliver had had time for little else, a fact Sebastian Blood had had no problem lampooning him for on live television much to his chagrin.

He knew he could handle Isabel’s ire the next few days, and he also planned to keep a low profile until the media decided he was no longer newsworthy. As such, he was able to finally find a little time to himself again. With his hands shoved deep in his pockets, Oliver made his way through the cemetery and came to a stop in front of one particular grave for the second time in as many weeks.

“Tommy, I think I messed up,” he spoke quietly. “I went back to the island because I didn’t think I deserved to stay here when I’d failed the city. When I’d failed you.”

He swallowed down the lump that threatened to rise in his throat and carried on. “But I was wrong. There were people here who still needed me. Thea. My mother. The people of the Glades. And…Laurel.”

Oliver reached out and laid his hand on top of the tombstone, not sure what he was seeking from it; comfort or condemnation. “I let Laurel down all over again. And Tommy, I don’t- I don’t know if I can fix it.”

He took out his phone, reopening the message that had been sent to him just days before her disappearance. He’d read it through only the once, and then had been forced to set it aside in favor of taking care of the Triad. That delay felt mockingly small compared to four months.

_Ollie,_

_Thea told me you’re taking some time to yourself after everything that’s happened. I guess you needed the space. Maybe we all do._

_But things have changed. I found something out and I have to talk to you about it. I know you feel like you can’t be in Starling right now, but this is important. I can’t do this without you._

_Please write back when you can._

_Love always,_

_Laurel_

The second one, he hadn’t had the chance to look at yet. Oliver opened it now. It had been sent just two days after the first and only contained one line:

_Please Ollie, I’m running out of time._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve and a Happy Holidays to all my readers! I realize the last chapter left off on a fairly ominous note so I'm happy to get this update out for you all as a present. Thanks so much for your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. Your enthusiasm for the story keeps me going.  
> This chapter will be covering about the same period of time as the 2x03 episode "Broken Dolls". I'm sure you've already noticed that I tend to skim over most of the scenes that wouldn't have much change to them, but if at any point you recognize dialogue it probably could go without saying but nevertheless it is not mine.  
> Now that that's out of the way, please enjoy!

John watched solemnly as Oliver paced the length of the table in the middle of the base over and over, his expression a mixture of fuming and dread. “Didn’t Lance say she hadn’t been to a doctor before she left?”

“She might’ve seen a specialist off the record,” his friend countered barely before he’d finished the question. “Or she might have gone to see someone outside of the city.” He wheeled sharply to face them both and demanded not for the first time, “ _How_ could you two have missed this?”

“Well I didn’t want to read—” Felicity noticed his raised eyebrow and amended, “—okay, Digg told me I shouldn’t read Laurel’s emails to you, so we didn’t know what was in them. And she hasn’t been reported as officially missing.” She spun back to face her monitors, muttering under her breath, “Maybe if your island had wifi we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

The other man scowled, and John intervened before something was said that somebody regretted. “Look Oliver, we can’t change what we did or didn’t do all those months ago, alright? None of us can. But what we can do is try and find out what happened to her. Do you think Lance might have more to go off of now?”

Oliver shook his head vehemently. “I can’t go to him with this, John. She said she was _running out of time_. Do you have any idea what that would do to him?”

“I know what it’s doing to you,” he answered. Oliver had only been back a little over two weeks and already it was clear he was cracking under the strain of managing the various facets of his life as well as this. It wasn’t like the man wasn’t experienced in pulling off the balancing act; John had marveled at his ability for most of last year. But now he was off-center, and it all came back to the ongoing disappearance of Laurel Lance.

If he were being generous, he could admit it bore more than a passing familiarity to his attitude on catching Deadshot. And he knew that, like he relied on Oliver in those times, someone needed to provide the objective perspective.

“Don’t you think it’d be better to pool all our resources to find her as soon as possible before she does run out of time?” He didn’t say what they were both thinking: _if she hasn’t already_.

His friend paced away again.

“Joanna.” The name fell from Oliver’s lips like a prayer. “Joanna told Lance that Laurel called into work sick. Maybe she knows something more specific. Felicity—”

“That better not be you asking me to schedule an appointment,” the blonde woman warned.

“Just get me the number to her office.”

John gave an internal sigh of relief as she moved to do just that.

\---

“Hey Oliver, come in.” Joanna shut the door behind him and walked around to take a seat at her desk. “I was pretty surprised when you called. I’m not usually your go-to lawyer.” His smile slipped and she sighed. “Guess you did hear about Laurel, huh.”

“Yeah, yeah I did. I was just wondering—”

“If there was anything I could tell you?” He nodded. “Just the same thing I told her dad; we went out with a couple of coworkers for drinks and they just didn’t agree with her. Laurel went home early and she called me the next day to say she’d been sick and couldn’t come in.”

“And how many times did she call in sick?”

“Just two. Thursday and Friday, I think. Then it was the weekend so,” she shrugged. “We both figured it was a stomach bug and she just needed some time to get over it. But then she just didn’t show up Monday and wasn’t answering my calls or texts. A couple days after that Officer Lance came around asking pretty much the same questions you are.”

“So it wasn’t anything…serious?” Oliver asked, seeming to struggle to find the word he wanted.

“Not that she told me,” Joanna answered. “Why? You don’t think she was really ill or something, do you?”

“I really don’t know.”

She shared a glum look with him. “I guess none of us do. Honestly, Oliver, this kind of has me freaked out,” she confessed. “I mean, Laurel just never does this kind of thing. I hope she wasn’t in some kind of trouble. And I hope you find her soon.”

“Thanks, Joanna. I’m sorry if this was a waste of your time. And congratulations on the new job.”

“Thanks.” Her smile slowly faded as Oliver stood to go, and Joanna chewed her bottom lip a moment before deciding it was now or never if she wanted to take the plunge. “Oliver?” He stopped just in front of the doorway, seeming bemused by the delay. “Did something happen between the two of you? It’s just when I came back to work, Tommy had broken things off. And Laurel…none of us were great, but she seemed to be pulling through till a little bit after you’d left. She didn’t want to talk to me about it, either. And I was pretty sure you still—”

She forced herself to stop before the claim could pass her lips; the thing that had hung about the office at CNRI ever since Oliver had come to see Laurel and apologize right after finally making it home last year, whenever he’d shown up to drop off or pick up his sister, and every time he’d come around to take Laurel out for lunch as the two grew closer all over again.

Oliver’s gaze had dropped to the floor of Joanna’s new office, and when he spoke he sounded far more serious than she’d previously thought he could be. “When I left, I didn’t intend to hurt Laurel or anyone else. I thought it’d be better if I wasn’t here. That was wrong.” He suddenly glanced back up at her and the look in his eyes was piercing. “Now I’m just trying to make it right.”

Joanna nodded solemnly. “You don’t think—sorry.”

Oliver turned back from the door a second time. “No, it’s fine. What is it?”

“Maybe the Hood might…I don’t know, it’s probably silly. But Laurel did get him to help find my brother’s killer. And he saved her life more than once. Do you think he knows she’s missing? Could he be looking for her?”

“I think,” he began, then paused. It was another minute before he tried again. “I think he’s trying to do what he can to help the city. And Laurel…no one cared more about helping this city than her. So, if she can be found…yeah, I think he’s probably going to do whatever he can.”

Oliver drew in a breath, then in an instant had placed a pleasant smile back on his face and gave her a wave goodbye before leaving out the door.

She leaned back in her chair and sighed for the umpteenth time while thinking about her missing best friend. Whether it was the Hood or Oliver Queen, she could only pray that somebody had to find her. “Good luck.”

\---

Quentin knew what he was doing wasn’t right, at least not by legal standards. But was it any less wrong to sit back and do nothing now that he knew the Doll Maker was back on the streets?

Laurel would have told him not to lose himself to this case all over again. But then Laurel wasn’t here. He’d been sent staggering home on his own from the bars enough times in the last few months to know that without her he’d already fallen over the brink. At least ruining his life on taking down Mathis would actually be of some help to other people.

He told himself this as he made the call that would put him through to the vigilante he had hunted for a better part of last year, stayed silent as he watched him put an arrow through another man’s shoulder, and considered it all a fine enough price to pay as they approached Mathis’ hotel room ready to make the arrest.

But, of course, Mathis never had been that easy.

His vigilante partner was on the line with Smoak, trying to pin down the serial killer’s location while he was left to try and talk the man down from committing his next murder, from putting another girl’s life on his conscious. He couldn’t bear the weight of the ones he carried already, not any longer.

“Barton, don't do it. I'm begging you, okay? Is that what you want? I am _begging_ you. Please, just stop!”

“It’s for the world to enjoy,” Mathis spoke right over him, practically in sing-song that crawled up under his skin and set his teeth on edge. “After all…everyone loves a pretty doll.”

“This is about me, isn’t it?” He made a final, desperate appeal. “About me bringing you down, Mathis. You know she had nothing to do with it. It’s me you want dead. Stop playing with dolls, Mathis. You want me dead, just do it!”

There was silence on the other end. He realized, with dread, the poor woman had stopped screaming. Would never scream again.

“Perhaps next time, detective.” With those final words, the line disconnected. Mathis had gotten away with it all.

He stood by the phone, heaving in great gasps of breath.

“ _Detective_.” Either his ears were playing tricks on him, or the vigilante was somehow managing to sound hesitant even through the voice modulator.

“Forget it,” he snapped roughly. “I’m not a detective. I’m not even a father. I’ve lost both my own girls.” He had to know, didn’t he? All that time he’d spent swinging in through windows at the last moment coming to Laurel’s rescue. “I wasn’t hard enough on Sara so then I took it all out on Laurel. She stuck by me, though. After her mother left, after the drinking started, after I…I didn’t deserve her,” he admitted aloud for the first time in a thick voice. “Thankless job. But that was my girl. Now she’s gone. She was in some kind of trouble and she couldn’t even turn to her own father.” Quentin sniffed once, loud in the absolute silence that seemed to roll off the hooded man in waves. “So- so yeah, maybe I don’t have a death wish, but if it stops that sick bastard from killing any more of these innocent girls then what have I really got to lose?”

“ _Any chance of finding your daughter and ensuring her safety and happiness_ ,” was the stark answer.

He gave a bitter chuckle. “Yeah. Maybe I thought bringing Mathis down one more time, that’d get her back somehow. Tricked myself into thinking the same thing all those years ago with Sara. I never learn.”

The vigilante stood there. Quentin thought maybe he didn’t know what to do for once. He wasn’t sure himself why he’d divulged so much. His deepest regrets, his self-loathing. Maybe it was easier to talk to a faceless man. Maybe it was simply that he was the only one around left to listen.

“Forget it,” he sighed again. “We need to track down that poor girl, for her family at least.”

There were things he couldn’t change, couldn’t fix. Wouldn’t Laurel want him to focus on the things he could?

\---

Felicity took her time making her way to the Arrow Cave to meet up with Oliver and Diggle later that week. The last few nights had been rough, not even counting her near run-in with a serial killer. Why did she always volunteer when it was the psychos they were going after?

Things had almost turned out very badly for Officer Lance in particular. The Doll Maker had managed to get the drop on him while he was leaving the precinct and taken him to Metamorpho Chemicals, which she’d tracked down.

Through Oliver’s com she and John had listened to Barton Mathis explain that he planned to keep Lance alive—and not preserved as a creepy doll—only because killing him wouldn’t break his soul, whatever that meant. To do that, he had planned to wait in hope that the officer’s kidnapping would draw out his daughter, whom he _would_ then turn into a human doll. Even criminals wanted to find Laurel Lance, apparently. Just thinking about that made Felicity shiver.

But Oliver hadn’t been alone in coming to the former detective’s rescue. From what he’d told them after, a blonde woman had shown up in the middle of the chaos and finished Mathis, permanently. It looked like they weren’t quite done with other people crowding in on their vigilante turf. Not that Oliver or Diggle would probably call it that.

The two men were already at their hideout by the time she came through the door, and discussing something serious judging by the low tones they were using. She paused at the top of the stairs, and listened.

“So Lance is blaming himself and you’re blaming yourself, but we all know Laurel chose to leave on her own. Maybe we don’t know the reason, but Oliver don’t you think if she still needed your help you’d have heard from her by now? You’ve been back for almost a month now.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, John. We don’t really know everything that happened. All I know is that, at some point, she needed my help…and I wasn’t there.” The guilt practically had a physical weight to it, it could be heard so plainly. “I thought I’d done the right thing because Laurel deserved someone better than me. But it was never about what she deserved, it was about what she _wanted_.”

“And that’s you.” It wasn’t quite a question, but there was a certain degree of doubt in John’s voice.

“Maybe. If I can find her. If she can forgive me. I told—” he faltered for a moment, growing hoarser as he finally finished, “Tommy. I told him that Laurel makes her own choices. And I didn’t let her make this one.”

It was increasingly difficult to listen from this far away. Felicity took a step forward—but it echoed in the large space. Both men looked up, Oliver having to turn his head to spot her.

“Um, hi,” she greeted unnecessarily, hurrying down the steps. Desperately wanting to draw attention away from her eavesdropping, Felicity continued, “I thought I would do a little digging last night to see if there were any records matching our mystery girl. Turns out, there are. A number of police reports in the last few months describe a masked woman in black attacking attackers. She’s put five would-be rapists in the hospital so far.”

“And killed Doll Maker.” Oliver’s tone and face were completely closed off. He was probably trying to guess how much she’d heard. It wasn’t like she hadn’t ever told him personal things before. How come Digg got to have all the heart-to-hearts?

“Uh, yeah, right,” she noted.

“First the Hoods, now this woman,” Diggle observed. “Looks like you’ve started a movement.”

“I don’t want to start a movement,” Oliver countered. “So we need to track her down.”

“To stop her or thank her?” Felicity had to ask. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t helped them out once already.

“To find out what she’s doing in this city and what she wants.” He was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone, which he pulled out to check. “Blocked number. Hello?” There was a beat of silence and Felicity watched as Oliver’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Hello?” He repeated, a little more impatiently. “Is anybody—”

Oliver stopped again, but she still couldn’t hear any sound of reply. He’d cut himself off. There was a faraway look to his eye, one that Felicity privately associated with The Island. He got that look a lot. Felicity hated it.

His tongue darted out to wet his lips, but then Oliver turned his back to the both of them, blocking her view.

She could still hear his voice of course. Softer and more—unbelievingly— _hopeful_ than she’d ever thought him capable. “Laurel?”

John looked up sharply. Felicity tensed.

“Laurel, please, if—no, no wait!” He took the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen for a second before whirling back around and practically shoving it at her. “Felicity!”

The call had been ended by the other person, judging by Oliver’s panicking.

“The number’s blocked and I didn’t even have a chance to set up a trace,” she pointed out. “I’m sorry.” She tried not to take the crushing disappointment on his face too personally. Tried being the operative word.

“Did she say anything?” Digg alone out of the three of them was staying relatively calm.

Oliver gave a single shake of the head. “No.”

“Then how can you be sure it was her, Oliver?”

“Because I just know, Diggle!” He took a breath, requiring quite a lot of effort to get himself back under control. “I just _know_. And when I said her name, I heard…something. A-a breath or—there was some kind of reaction.”

She exchanged a look with John. It was clear Oliver was grasping at straws. And she had to wonder, if it really had been Laurel trying to reach him, why would she hang up? It was clear Oliver cared about her—had _always_ cared about her, Felicity forcibly reminded herself—so why continue to hide? Why leave in the first place?

Yet still, Felicity reached out and took the phone. “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised.

“Thank you, Felicity.” She tried not to bask too long in his grateful tone and warm expression. It was growing harder to ignore that Oliver favored her with that look usually when she was doing something he’d asked of her.

Was it a friend he saw when he looked at her, or just the secretary? Her imaginings of something more felt like far-flung fantasies in the face of Laurel Lance’s phantom presence. Maybe it was time to start admitting that to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Thanks so much for your continued kudos and comments, everybody. They seriously help me to keep writing.  
> But I have been remiss in crediting the amazing colorofmymind for her beta-ing each chapter. Believe me, if they did not pass through her first, my work would be riddled with all kinds of terrible errors. So a big thank you to colorofmymind as well!  
> Without further ado, the next chapter. This one will cover the two Sara-centric episodes "Crucible" and "League of Assassins". Please enjoy!

“I couldn’t get anything off of the phone call,” Felicity spoke hardly before he’d fully entered the office the next morning. Oliver glanced at his desk to find his phone already sitting there waiting for him.

He tried not to let his disappointment show. “Thank you for trying. I really appreciate it.”

“I know.” Felicity’s smile appeared tight. He probably hadn’t been convincing enough. Oliver knew he’d been short, maybe even distant with his two friends the past couple weeks. It was just so hard to focus with so much about Laurel’s disappearance still unknown. For the longest time she’d been his clarity, his home, always providing a sense of balance and comfort even if she didn’t know it. He should have told her that when he’d still had the chance.

Now he needed to try on his own, he needed to work to be better. He pocketed his phone and walked around the desk, preparing to take a seat and begin the workday.

“I was thinking,” Felicity said suddenly, and he looked up. “If you could get a hold of Laurel’s things—her tech, I mean, nothing like—you know what? Never mind.”

“No, go ahead,” he did his best to reassure. Felicity’s slip-ups around him had become less of an irritant the more he realized she seemed genuinely embarrassed by them. Was it something about him, something he was doing wrong? “You want to take a look at her phone?”

“Or her laptop. Both would be preferable. It’s just we might be able to find something in her search history—flight or train schedules, WebMD if she was looking up symptoms—something she didn’t talk to Joanna or Lance about before she left.”

“You could get past her passwords?”

Felicity gave him a look, and he winced. Right, it probably sounded like he was underestimating her again. “Four digit passcodes on a phone and a password-protected laptop are child’s play, believe me. I can have it done in no time. It might cut into my search for mystery girl, though.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he dismissed quickly. “I can put someone else on that.” He had been looking for something to occupy Roy now that he’d sort of recruited him to keep an eye on the young man.

Felicity nodded. “So, how do you plan to ask Lance for his daughter’s stuff?”

He considered that for a moment. “I don’t.”

\---

Oliver didn’t bother with the lights. It would look needlessly suspicious to anyone who might be watching, and he could have navigated Laurel’s apartment blindfolded if asked for all the time he’d spent here both before and after the island. Lance had moved nothing, probably in the vain hope that if it remained undisturbed the missing occupant might someday return.

She’d left her laptop on the desk, plugged in and charging. Oliver took a moment, however, to first scan the number of legal pads and post-its scattering the wooden surface. Laurel had always been in the habit of writing out her notes, errant thoughts that she wanted to return to later, and plans for the future. He found a checklist of CNRI clients that had presumably been met with and had their cases addressed in some manner after the Undertaking, a reminder about an interview with the now-deceased ADA Donner, and a half-finished grocery list among other bits and pieces that were incomprehensible to him.

“ _Have you found her laptop yet?_ ”

The prompt from Felicity had the half-formed smile dropping from his face, and he gave his head a brief shake to clear it. “ _Yes_.” He made to unplug it from the charge cord.

There was a sudden piercing, screeching noise and Oliver nearly dropped his bow as he was forced to clamp his hands over his ears. Whirling around he could just make out a woman’s silhouette crouched in the window he’d only recently entered through, blonde and dressed all in black.

The noise was cut off as quickly as it began and she spoke. “I don’t think that belongs to you.”

“ _Well it doesn’t belong to you_ ,” he growled. Even without hearing her, he’d known the instant he laid eyes on her she wasn’t Laurel. Which meant she was getting in the way. “ _I’m just trying to find her_.”

“I’m handling it.”

“ _Oliver, what’s happening?_ ” came Digg’s voice over the com. “ _Getting a lot of feedback on the com_.”

“ _Is that the woman that helped save Lance?_ ” Was Felicity’s question.

It was. And now that he’d made that realization, one thing seemed very clear. “ _What’s your connection to the Lances?_ ”

He thought he could make out just the hint of a smirk in the little light provided by the window. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“ _Why not?_ ” He asked, slowly shifting closer. There was something about her, something he was struggling to place.

“Should’ve figured you’d be looking into this. Some things never change. You and her, always and forever,” she said instead, and Oliver took another step.

“ _Who are you?_ ”

“Once you know, your life will never be the same,” she warned.

“ _I could take it_.”

She gave a slow shake of the head. “Not this time. Ollie.”

He stilled. That voice, and _here_ in _Laurel’s apartment_ —but it couldn’t be…it couldn’t. “Sara?”

Like a ghost from the past, the woman gave him a long, almost pitying look. “I’ll give you some time to let it sink in.”

She disappeared out the window before he could find his voice again.

\---

If she was being honest with herself—a rarity—it wasn’t just Oliver who needed some space for the time being. This, him knowing, it changed things. And probably not for the better.

Sara knew she shouldn’t have done it. There was no reason for her to get that close, to risk exposure. Once she’d identified the intruder at Laurel’s she should have left him alone. Of course it would be Ollie, it always was.

But then there they had been, the two of them, standing around with masks and shielded faces hiding themselves in her sister’s apartment. Figured they would end up meeting like this.

She couldn’t take back Oliver knowing her identity, knowing she was still alive. What mattered now was controlling what he did with that information. His first instinct was going to be to tell, she knew that. Aside from his moment of weakness with her that had plunged the both of them into that ocean and the hell beyond, his loyalty had always lain with Laurel.

But perhaps, in Laurel’s absence—Sara pushed down the familiar pang of guilt and fear that had only grown worse upon her return to the city—Oliver could be talked round to her way of thinking.

There was only so much hiding out now with Sin that she could do anyway. According to her, there had already been some boy sniffing around, probably an attempt of Oliver’s to reach out. But Sara refused to be cornered.

It was easy enough staking out the club Ollie’s kid sister was running, almost too easy. Though he’d certainly learned a lot since they last parted, her quarry made no attempt to disguise his movements as he entered the building after hours. The bar, not the hideout he’d built for himself downstairs. She let herself in after him.

“Did you tell my family that I’m alive?”

He looked up, not really that surprised to see her. “No. Sara.” Oliver paused, clearly trying to figure out how he wanted to say something before deciding to just be blunt. “I saw you die.”

She had to shake her head at that. How many times were they going to have this conversation? And it wasn’t the one either of them wanted to have, she could tell. One mention of Slade and that was enough to send Oliver changing the subject.

“Sara. Why did you come back?”

“The earthquake,” she answered simply.

“Because you wanted to make sure your family was safe. But now you’re still here, watching over them. Protecting them.”

“Yeah, and I’ve done a great job of it so far, clearly,” she remarked bitterly.

Oliver’s eyes, however, seemed to light with a sudden spark. “Do you know something about Laurel?”

“I wasn’t—she was already gone. I had to take my time coming here, and when I finally made it—it’s been six years since I’ve seen my sister, Ollie.” She was tempted to pull a bottle from behind the bar, but instead just gave a humorless chuckle. “Six years, and after everything I went through I missed her by days. Maybe that’s better. Probably for the best we don’t see each other.”

He saw right through her bluff. “You’re guarding her apartment.”

She shrugged. “What else can I do?”

“You could reveal you’re alive. If Laurel is out there, if she’s watching, there is _nothing_ that would stop her coming home if she knew you were here,” Oliver insisted.

“Yeah, so she could kill me,” Sara scoffed.

“She forgave me. You don’t think she could forgive her own sister?”

Sara looked at him in disbelief. _Forgiveness_? She hadn’t even planned to ask for it, not when it wasn’t something that could be forgiven in the first place. Only the first of so many acts she’d committed over the last six years. “Ollie—”

“If you won’t tell everyone, at least tell your father,” he appealed. “He is _destroying_ himself without Laurel. You’ve got to give him something to live for.”

“Seeing me wouldn’t make him happy.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not the Sara he remembers. And pretending otherwise,” she gave him a pointed look, “I can’t do that.” It was too dangerous to even consider that idea. The League had already sent one of their own after her. All she was really doing was biding her time, prolonging the inevitable.

“I died on that island, Ollie. We both did.” Maybe she didn’t know everything that had happened to him after Slade and that boat went down, but she had had to do things that couldn’t be forgiven or taken back. If Ollie wanted to continue being an optimist in spite of himself she wouldn’t stop him, but that had never been her. Sara turned away from him and the bar.

“Your father wants to die.” She stopped in her tracks. “He blamed himself for what happened to you, and he’s blaming himself for whatever happened to Laurel. He thinks he failed her. Maybe we all did.”

Sara’s voice was tight with the control needed to admit, “Not the first time we did that.”

“Then don’t fail her now.” She heard Oliver take a careful step closer. “Your father needs someone, Sara. And that someone, right now, it has to be you.”

“I’m not just a stand-in for Laurel, Ollie.” The biting reminder left her lips before she could stop it, and now that it was out in the air she couldn’t regret it.

Another step. He could have reached out and touched her, taken her hand. But he didn’t. They both knew why. “I know.”

Then he stepped around her and began walking to the door. “Just give me some time to think about it,” she called out. “And thanks. For understanding.”

He paused. “I don’t understand it. But it’s your secret.”

\---

Moira bowed her head in resignation as Thea stormed out the door. She’d known making this request would likely upset her children, but it was the only way to ensure the little stability they’d managed to hang onto. If they knew the truth…nothing would be the same.

The DA’s office had subpoenaed countless phone and email records, long-buried communications between herself and Malcolm, things that were too shameful to bear the light of day, much less a courtroom. Except, of course, the one consequence of their illicit liaison that Moira could never bring herself to regret, and she had just left the room.

“Why would you ask for a plea deal?” Jean was just as if not more incensed than her daughter by Moira’s attempt to circumvent the legal process. “Even if we ever get to sentencing you were acting under duress. I have everything I need to keep them from sentencing you to life in prison. And Donner’s replacement is far less hardline, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Life in prison does not have me worried,” she stated. “Truthfully, I am not confident I could win over a jury, and in such an event I’d rather avoid all the spectacle for a change.”

Oliver shifted slightly where he stood. Her son and her lawyer exchanged a look, Jean heaving a sigh before rising and following after Thea. He in turn drew back the now unoccupied chair before taking a seat across the table from her.

“I didn't think that there were secrets kept between us. Last year I learned different. And I've gotten pretty good at knowing when you're hiding something from me. So, Mom...what are you hiding now?”

She turned her face to the side. “Help your sister come to terms with my choice, because it's made.”

But her son wasn’t finished. He reached across the table and took her hand before she could signal to the guard her readiness to return to her cell. “There’s an old friend of mine back in town, and she is struggling to tell her family something. A secret she thinks will make them stop loving her.”

“Oliver—”

“And Laurel, she- she left me a message, before she disappeared. Did you know she was gone?” Moira nodded; Thea had told her just the other week, guilt and worry in her expression that her brother now mirrored ten-fold. She turned the hand in his hold over to squeeze his back comfortingly. “There was something she wanted to tell me, some secret. Now, wherever she is, she’s struggling with it on her own. And it’s not easy, knowing that and watching that—the people I care about, feeling like they have to hide from me instead of letting me help them.”

He leaned about as far over the table as he could, compelling her to meet his pleading gaze, one that cut straight to her heart. “Please, Mom. Don’t hide from me. From Thea.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she sighed. Moira stood and walked around the table, leaning down the wrap her arms around his broad shoulders. Her baby boy. “We’re all hiding something, aren’t we?”

She could feel the moment he stilled in her embrace. It wasn’t kind, manipulating what he was unaware that she knew, but perhaps not all of the fight was out of her yet. And it was innocently naïve of her son to believe her willing to divulge all of her secrets with seemingly no intention of doing so himself. She’d been playing this kind of game while he was still a child, and the saying about old habits was certainly true in her case.

But if there was one fight she would always lose, it was against her children. “I suppose you’d better instruct Jean to proceed with the trial preparations.” Whatever was to come, whatever was dug up and thrown in her way, she’d face it as ever for her family.

\---

He had to be living in some kind of dream, Quentin thought. Sometime after the quake, he’d fallen out of reality and into a world where nothing made sense. Laurel leaving, him teaming up with the Arrow, Smoak’s weird warnings about some assassin club, and now his very eyes couldn’t be trusted.

Because it just couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be _her_.

“It’s me. It’s Sara,” his baby girl was saying, and he didn’t know whether to reach out or push away from this illusion. “Daddy…it’s okay.”

Then he was holding onto her for dear life, repeating her name over and over like a mantra. He didn’t understand how this could be happening. After everything he’d lost, how did he get to have this again?

But their reunion was cut short all too soon by the apparently all too real assassins, and he quickly discovered that while his little girl was back she was not the same.

With some help from the Arrow and Sara’s newly acquired ability, the killers that had been sent for him were handled. But that wasn’t enough to fix things. Sara didn’t even consider his request for her to come home for a second, or to tell her mother—Dinah who had sounded so strained the last time they’d talked on the phone all those months ago about Laurel. She needed this just as much as he had.

“Your mother—”

“You can’t tell her. You can’t, Daddy,” Sara stated in no uncertain terms. “And you need to stop looking for Laurel.”

He nearly lost his balance at the declaration. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Arrow freeze in place. “What do you mean?”

“Right now she’s out of the city, she’s out of contact,” his youngest daughter explained. “From you, but also from the League. If you can’t find her, they might not be able to either, and they’ll be less likely to try. And if they already know where she is, they might just think that I- that I don’t care.” She looked not to him, but to the vigilante as she concluded, “It’s what’s safest for all of you.”

He could barely make out anything of the other man’s features under the hood, only that his jaw was clenched along with his hands. Like he was barely holding back from objecting. A moment later, the man turned away. Sara sighed, then made to step back.

“I can’t let you go. I can’t let you go!”

“I have to—Dad, I have to—I have to go,” she managed. “I love you. Keep them safe,” was her parting instruction to the hooded man. Then, replacing her mask and wig, his baby vanished from his life all over again. How was it fair? How could he be expected to cope with this?

“ _Detective…she’s right. You have to keep her secret,_ ” the Arrow intoned in that distorted register.

“It’s already the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he confessed. “And Laurel?” The other man said nothing. “How do you live like this?”

That, too, garnered no response, other than the vigilante shooting one of those zip line arrows and making his escape into the night. Now he truly was alone again, just like he’d been before Sara had reentered his life only to be ripped away again by forces none of them could control.

Both his daughters, lost out there in the world somewhere he couldn’t protect them. He’d never been ready for this, but then he’d never really been given a choice, had he?

Quentin made the lonely trek home in a distracted state. His apartment was just as quiet as the empty streets had been. It was as if nothing were different, despite the past several hours forever changing everything. And yet he was the only one who knew. He felt stifled by the inability to talk about it, to go to anyone.

He’d pulled out his phone and dialed the number before really thinking about it. Old habits die hard.

“Hi, this is Laurel Lance. I can’t answer the phone right now. You can reach me at my office at 355-4722 or leave your name and phone number, and I’ll get back to you soon. Thank you!”

The beep sounded and he drew in a breath. “It’s uh, it’s me. You’re not gonna get this…but I guess I just needed to get some things off my chest. Hear your voice.” Sara had said that was the first thing that people tended to forget, and he’d be damned if he ever lost the sound of either of his girls.

“I hope you’re safe, wherever you are, even if you couldn’t tell me. Wouldn’t tell me. I’m not mad, that’s not what this is about.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “One day, honey, when you have a daughter of your own, you'll understand that being a parent, it means you just never stop worrying about your children.

“All I need’s a sign. A sign you’re okay, a sign things are gonna turn around somehow. I’ve already been given one tonight. Could you do that for me, honey?” He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath a long moment. The silence stretched on. “I love you. Always have. I hope you know that, wherever you are.”

Quentin hesitated a moment, unsure how to end this thing he’d started. But no, he wouldn’t say goodbye. Not now, not ever. “Goodnight, honey.”

\---

“Ollie?” Thea called as she let herself in the front door. There was no response; she didn’t know how he could stand staying here while it was so quiet. “Ollie!”

“In here, Speedy!” She heard the call at last, from the sitting room it sounded like. Thea found her brother nursing a glass of something, which he set aside in order to stand up and meet her approach. “Hey, what brings you here?” Instead of an answer, she threw her arms around him. It only took a second for him to return it. “Thea?”

“Thank you for convincing Mom to go ahead with the trial,” she finally spoke into his shirt. Thea turned her face slightly in order to sound less muffled. “I was so worried we were never gonna get her back.”

“Me too,” he confessed softly. “I think she was just worried about the prosecution digging into her past, bringing up things she’s not proud of. You know all she wants is our support.”

Thea nodded, the guilt at having shut their mother out for five months weighing heavy on her now. “I know. I told her that it didn’t matter what they said when I visited today. I just need her to come home.

“Although,” she added, pulling back slightly so she could see his face, “you might want to get that broken window in the front room fixed before she does. And what happened to the table?”

His mouth dropped open for a moment, looking adorably panicked. “Um, bit of a long story. Was hosting a friend and things got…a little wild.”

She shook her head. Typical Ollie.

This did give her exactly the opening she’d been looking for, however, and so she moved to sit on the arm of the sofa. “So, this friend. They wouldn’t have anything to do with…”

“With?” He asked, not quite taking the bait as she’d hoped.

“Laurel,” she supplied bluntly.

Oliver grew strangely tense. “Why would you think that?”

“Because mom said you told her you’d been catching up with an old friend who was hiding something, and the last time I saw Laurel she really needed to talk to you about something?” She reminded. “Which, I’ve been thinking about that, okay, and I remember offering her a drink on the house but she said she couldn’t. Does Officer Lance know where her car is? Maybe he could track down the license plate if it’s missing.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said noncommittally.

“Also, she’d started putting highlights in her hair. Blonde again, like not as blonde as when mom and dad hosted that gala, but she could be now. Does that help?”

“Help what, Speedy?”

She gave him a look. “Help you find her. Isn’t that what you’ve been doing? You interviewed me almost right after you got back and Walter says you came by the bank to ask him about Laurel’s account.”

“I did, yeah.” Oliver frowned, then picked his glass back up, staring into the contents. “But, uh, I’ve been doing some thinking, Thea. Laurel…wherever she is, she left on her own. No forwarding address, no calls. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”

She gaped at him. “So you’re just giving up?”

“What I’m saying is,” he seemed to struggle to find the words, “maybe we should respect her decision. It’s not giving up, it is just…giving in.”

“I cannot _believe_ you,” she said. Oliver looked up at her sharply. “After everything Laurel’s done for you, for us. She represented you against her father, she kept me out of jail, she has _always_ been there for us! And the one time she needs you, you just don’t want to try?”

“It’s not- it’s not like that, Speedy,” he attempted to reason, but she didn’t want to hear it.

“So what is it like, Ollie? God, I can’t believe I actually thought you were going to do something.” She couldn’t even look at him right now. With pursed lips and a shake of the head, Thea stood and marched out of the room.

“Thea. Thea!”

She barely registered the streets she drove down, likely far too fast, she just knew she needed to get away from that house. Squealing to a stop outside of Roy’s, she threw the car in park and let herself in once again, giving the door a satisfying slam behind her.

“Hey. Maybe don’t try to break that,” her boyfriend greeted, head dipped back to look at her from his spot on the couch.

“Sorry,” she grumbled. Thea drew in a breath and let it out, then worked to sound more sincere. “Sorry. How was Sin?”

“Doing better. She’s out of the hospital, at least. How’s your brother?”

She knew he was just asking to be polite, but Thea didn’t mind taking him up on the unintentional offer to vent. “Being an idiot.”

Roy smirked. “I could’ve told you that. Would’ve saved you the trip.”

Thea shook her head again, walking around the couch and dropping onto the cushion beside him. “I just don’t get him. I _know_ he cares, it’s like he just doesn’t think he can do anything about it.”

“About what?”

“Laurel’s disappearance,” she sighed, leaning gratefully into it when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“He’s not looking for her anymore?”

“No. Apparently he thinks it’s not really his business. But if he’s not going to, then who is? The police aren’t investigating it.”

Her boyfriend snorted. “Yeah, well they don’t do anything do they? It’s the Arrow—” He cut himself off, withdrawing his arm as he realized the slip.

But Thea found she wasn’t angry or annoyed. In fact… “Roy.”

“What?” He asked, defensive.

Thea turned to face him sharply, sitting up on her knees. “Are you still trying to contact the Arrow? I’m not going to be mad, I swear, just- just be honest with me.”

He looked over her face carefully. “No.”

“Oh.” Thea’s shoulders slumped.

“I _have_ gotten into contact with him,” he admitted.

“Wait, really? When?”

“Just a couple times. He asked me after the stuff with Glades Memorial to be his eyes and ears in the Glades instead of patrolling on my own. I figured, you know, I’d still be able to help people without getting beat up so you wouldn’t—you’re sure you’re not mad about this?” He checked.

“Under other circumstances, maybe I would be, but not right now,” she stated. “How do you contact him?”

Her boyfriend considered for another moment before withdrawing what looked like a tiny red arrow. “I put this in the alley wall outside the Verdant and then he just shows up.”

Thea pulled back. “He’s got surveillance on my club?”

“I guess?” He shrugged, then shifted a bit on the couch. “Look, Thea, why do you want to know all this stuff? Why now?”

“Well, maybe because…I’m starting to see things from your point of view,” she said slowly. “If the people in charge aren’t going to help us, then what else can we do?”

“Pinch me, I’m dreaming,” her boyfriend said. Despite the sarcastic edge, he was staring at her with something that looked like real awe.

“I’m not saying I want you back out on the streets,” she hastened to make clear. “But I know that Laurel would do this for me.”

Maybe Ollie was ready to call it quits, but not every Queen was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I've gone back to school and so my schedule is a lot busier than it has been. As such, I'm going to have to change my updating schedule to every other Saturday. Apologies in advance for the longer waits, but it's really the only way I can get out good quality content for you guys.  
> Much thanks to colorofmymind for beta-ing, this chapter covers the period of time from episode 2x06 "Keep Your Enemies Closer", and any dialogue you recognize comes from that episode.  
> Now that that bit of housekeeping is out of the way, I just want to thank everyone again for their wonderful comments, their patience and support, and to tell you to please enjoy the chapter!

John Diggle had always prided himself on his control. As a soldier, it had kept him alive; as a civilian, it had kept him sane. He didn’t let himself get emotional in public, and at times he held even those he considered like family at a distance. People looked at John and saw the calm on the surface, and very rarely cared to examine what lay underneath.

Only two people in his life could expose that façade for what it was, though for very different reasons, but it took a woman named Amanda Waller to combine them together.

He was far too late getting back to the base, he knew that. Oliver and Felicity were bound to ask. John had already decided just how much he was going to tell them.

Of course with those two it was never going to be enough, and the next thing he knew it was the three of them who were going to be making their way to Moscow. He couldn’t deny being grateful even as he volunteered as little as possible, let Felicity make assumptions about his “spy girlfriend”, and confirmed nothing.

Of course, this rescue mission they were going on resembled a certain situation so obviously similar that it was unavoidable someone was going to bring it up.

“Laurel missing, Lyla MIA,” Felicity listed off. “Now we just need one of my exes to disappear, and we’ll have a full set!”

Oliver did nothing more than clench his jaw, but it was enough to make her wince in the ensuing silence.

“Not the best time for a joke?”

“Maybe not,” John acknowledged with a wry half-smile, about the best he could manage in the midst of his own anger, fear, and guilt. Everything felt muted, all he could think was that _Lyla did it for me, she was going after Deadshot for me, if she’s dead it’s my fault_.

Felicity reached out and placed a hand on his arm, and it took everything in him not to flinch. He hadn’t even noticed her cross the room. “She’ll be okay, John. We’re going to do everything we can.”

He did his best to push it all back down. Felicity counted on him, saw him as a constant in the face of Oliver’s often fluctuating temper. “I know. Thank you.”

With a single look, he and Oliver came to a silent agreement and both lingered as Felicity packed up her things and left for the night. It wasn’t exactly the smartest choice considering the long flight they would be taking tomorrow, but in the time he’d known Oliver he’d learned how to tell when the man felt like talking, and it was not an opportunity that should be easily passed up.

And maybe John had some things to say, too. “She’s got a point,” he began. “We’ve both got similar problems right now.” Oliver nodded once. “Any tips?”

“On what?”

“Coping.”

Oliver smirked. “Is that what it looks like I’m doing?”

He paused, turning a careful eye on the other man. There were bags under his eyes, not an unfamiliar sight considering their busy schedules, but certainly more pronounced than usual. His typical five o’clock shadow was growing out into something more noticeable as well. And the way he held himself, tensed with his arms crossed over his chest like he was keeping something physically reined in, that wasn’t a wholly unfamiliar concept to John, either.

“No,” he finally gave his assessment. “No, it hasn’t looked like it for a while.” Everyone knew it. Isabel Rochev was on his friend’s case for missing meetings, Thea wasn’t speaking to her brother, and John had had to watch the vigilante’s back a lot more carefully the last few nights.

“Laurel wasn’t my ex.” The statement came, like most of Oliver’s admissions, without warning. “Just before the Undertaking, she and I—we…well, we were working things out. And I thought that maybe…”

“Yeah,” John agreed. He remembered telling Lyla he was single, how she’d taken the time to mention she was, too. Called him Johnny like she used to, even.

Oliver shifted, bringing him out of his thoughts. “But then the Undertaking happened, and I left. I gave up.” His gaze fell to the ground and his voice to a low murmur. “I’m always giving up. Maybe Thea is right about me.”

His first instinct was to remind Oliver of Sara’s advice. But the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t keep from picturing himself in the other man’s shoes. If he had discovered on his own that Lyla was missing and then someone like Waller had told him not to look for her. He’d be damned if he listened, even if it meant danger.

It was going to be dangerous going on this mission to Russia. Had he even thought to hesitate? No. Not about Lyla, never about Lyla.

What had ever made him think Oliver could be different?

“She’s only right as long as you let her be,” is what John said instead. “Because you do give up sometimes, Oliver. Everyone does. Thing is, when I make a mistake, when I walk away from something I just…clam up. Don’t talk about it, to anyone. Not about Carly…and not about Lyla.”

Oliver watched him with clear confusion, and it took everything in John to battle against his own training, to share this moment of honesty with him.

“Lyla’s not my ‘spy girlfriend’. She was my wife.” He couldn’t look at Oliver or he wouldn’t be able to continue, and so he fixed his gaze on the far wall. “We met in the army back in Afghanistan. But we didn't stay married long once we got stateside. Couldn't figure out a way to stay married without a war to fight. So she joined A.R.G.U.S., and I circled back for my third tour.”

“You still love her.” It wasn’t a question. “Why have you never said anything?”

“It’s just not who I am,” he confessed. “Look, Oliver, I know I’ve tried to make you talk about the island. Because I think that _is_ the kind of person you are. You’ve taught yourself to keep secrets to protect the people you care about, but all it’s done is isolate you from them. And the person you are when you think you’re on your own, when you’re away from the people you care about—he’s not a good person.”

“I can’t tell my family my secret, Dig,” Oliver insisted, though it lacked the usual firm conviction.

“But Sara could tell her family hers?” The other man had no reply. “You saw how much it helped her father to know the truth. You saw how much it helped _her_. None of us can live this life on our own, Oliver.”

“I don’t.” Again, he was hit with a swell of gratitude. Over a year ago, he would’ve never thought he’d forge this kind of bond, this kind of brotherhood with someone like Oliver Queen. But John knew that while he and Felicity had become more of a team than the other man had dared to hope for on his mission, every night Oliver returned to an empty manor, a shell of a home. A shell of a life.

He approached the problem from a different angle. “You keep saying you should’ve been there for Laurel. Maybe if you’d been honest with her completely, you would’ve felt like you could talk to her after the Undertaking instead of giving up. Maybe you’d be working things out together right now.”

He was overstepping their usual bounds by a lot, so he wasn’t surprised in the least when Oliver attempted to deflect. “You let Lyla know the truth about Deadshot, and now she’s in danger.”

“She found out on her own, actually,” John corrected him. “And all that tells me is that I never should have given up. Not on Lyla, not on us. We could’ve worked together on this.”

John checked his watch. It was getting late enough that they’d be kicking themselves come morning if they stayed up much longer. He turned to go but paused just before the stairs. Some part of him still refused to give up on Oliver.

“Stop working against the people you love, Oliver. Stop fighting yourself.”

\---

Whatever Oliver Queen had been planning to work on, Isabel was getting quite the smug satisfaction from inserting herself right in the middle of it.

Stopping him wasn’t the goal seeing as this seemed some errand of no consequence. No, this was just to remind him who was really in charge, rattle him and his team a little.

It was ridiculously easy to throw them off; in her presence they were forced to stick to their pretenses thinking her none the wiser, and there were few excuses her in-name-only co-C.E.O. could use to escape her on a supposed business trip to Moscow. She took pleasure in toying with him and sowing seeds of discord between him and his subordinates.

“A blonde I.T. girl all of a sudden gets promoted to be assistant to the C.E.O.? There are only two ways that happens. One is nepotism, and she doesn't look like your cousin.”

The heir to the Queen’s dwindling fortune was looking at her as if she had sprouted an unexpected head. “That is _absolutely_ not happening.”

“What were her qualifications?” Isabel pressed, knowing he had no legitimate answer even if not for the reason she was suggesting. “Aside from an abundance of short skirts.”

“Her skirts aren't that...short,” he defended weakly, as though he’d just become uncomfortably aware of the truth to her words.

Had he really been oblivious to the girl’s attempts all this time? She could have laughed. Robert would have surely noticed. Robert had always noticed.

Nevertheless it left her curious about the son. And it really was about time she tried to soften her image a little. No doubt Moira was already warning him against her.

Gaining his sympathy didn’t prove difficult. Over drinks she let him make clear his lack of intentions regarding Felicity Smoak. Then it was the woman-in-business card, always a strong opening move. Then of course a compliment was required.

“Why do you try so hard to make me think that you're a lazy idiot? I know you're not. Underneath that swagger, I see you pretty clearly.” If he only knew how clearly, he’d likely be horrified.

“Really? And what do you see?”

“You're intelligent. Driven. And lonely.”

There were no denials this time. “How do you see that?”

“Because it's what I see when I look in the mirror.”

Her Russian heritage proved an even greater advantage than she could have hoped for, given that it only cemented the idea that they really weren’t so different after all. She could see him reassessing her, humanizing her. He likely thought he had charmed her.

And there was an easy way to convince him he had.

Isabel leaned closer over their shared sofa and dropped a hand on his knee—only for it to jump under her touch.

“Uh, Isabel,” he stammered, sliding to the further end and seemingly not having thought of what to say next.

“What’s wrong?” She eyed his wary expression, trying to calculate the misstep. He was known to hook up with women at the drop of a hat. She was beautiful. This should have sealed the deal. Unless… “Ah.” Isabel sat back. Like father, like son after all. “So there is something more.”

“No. Not with Felicity,” he insisted, however. “But I’m also not…available.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oliver, if you are having some kind of affair that could endanger the company’s reputation should it come to light—”

“It’s nothing like that,” he reassured. “But I made a promise to someone before we both left the city, and it would be wrong of me to disrespect that promise before she comes home.”

Isabel needed a minute to absorb this new information. “So you’re just…waiting?”

He didn’t take offense at her skeptical tone, but his expression was of grim stoicism as he replied, “I’ve done it before.”

Before. _That_ before. The _island_ before.

He was rising from his seat now. “Isabel, I have to go. Sorry.” Clearly her action had caused him enough discomfort that he required distance. A setback, though not an unrecoverable one.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and he blinked in clear surprise. “I could see you were lonely. I didn’t realize just how much.”

He attempted a smile, though it was just as much an act as everything else they both did. “ _Dobroy nochi_.”“ _Dobroy nochi_ ,” she echoed quietly as he left the lobby. Isabel waited about ten minutes, then made her own way up to her room. She had an important call to make, international.After all, she had just learned something that would no doubt prove invaluable to Slade Wilson.

\---

Roy reentered the Verdant just as the last of his coworkers were finishing up closing for the night. His girlfriend and boss was back behind the bar making a last notation, and she looked up eagerly at his approach only for her own expression to fall.

“Nothing?”

“I waited for over an hour.” He shrugged. “I guess he must be busy.”

Thea scoffed. “Doing what? The news wasn’t reporting on him tonight _or_ last night. Seems to me like he could make the time if he wanted.”

“What am I even supposed to tell him when he does show up? My girlfriend’s worried about a friend who probably just decided to skip town?” He grimaced at the sharpness in his voice and worked to calm himself down. “I feed him information about things that are happening in the Glades, things that are going wrong. We’ve got nothing to tell him about this that would make him want to look into it.”

Thea thought over his words for a few moments. “Okay. So then, we need more information. We need to try and figure out what made her leave. If there was some kind of foul play or…something. We should take a look at her apartment.”

He gave her a look. “You wanna do a B&E now?”

“What? No, we’ll ask the doorman to let us up. Why do you always think of the illegal method first?”

Roy shrugged. “Guess it’s in my nature. Which I am trying to unlearn,” he amended. “We’ll do things your way.”

Thea fortunately was continuing her patient streak with him. Lance’s daughter disappearing really had to be eating at her. “You’re really okay helping me with this?”

“Yeah, if this is what you want.”

She kissed him briefly on the lips before delivering the chastisement, “You know, you should want to find Laurel, too. You owe her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I owe her?”

“Yeah. If she hadn’t been my sponsor at CNRI for my probation then you would’ve never stolen my purse, and we never would’ve met.” She was right, and they both knew it. “So we’re going. Tomorrow.”

Of course, they’d barely dragged themselves out of bed late that next morning before they were entertaining company. Sin had let herself in with the key he’d given her and was poking around the fridge.

“You wanna make us all breakfast?” He asked by way of greeting.

“Make it for me. I’m the invalid,” she retorted with a jerk of the head toward her bad shoulder.

“How is it healing?” Thea asked.

“Well enough,” was the noncommittal response. Sin seemed happy enough to kick back on their couch. He wondered if he ought to give her a more permanent invitation to do so; though the girl hadn’t told him explicitly, he had a feeling by the lack of police reports that her mysterious blonde friend wasn’t in the picture anymore.

“So, what are the lovebirds up to today?”

He exchanged a look with Thea, who shrugged as if to say _you trust her, I trust her_. So he answered, “We’re looking into a friend’s disappearance.”

“There’s a lot of that happening lately. They from the Glades?”

“No. But she used to work here,” Thea answered.

Sin made no further comment, but when the two of them got ready to go she pushed up off the couch and followed them outside.

Roy arched an eyebrow. “Are you coming?”

She shrugged. “Got nothing else going on.”

He looked to Thea again, but it was clear his girlfriend wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it. “I guess if you want to take a look with us. We’re just seeing if we can find something in her things to give us a clue. You think you could help?”

“I know what it looks like when someone clears out.”

They made their way to Laurel Lance’s apartment building without further comment. Roy could tell the instant their group was noticed walking up to the door by the way the guy in uniform tensed as he looked both him and Sin up and down. But having a billionaire for a girlfriend had some perks. The man instantly brightened once he caught sight of Thea.

“Miss Queen, good afternoon!”

“Hi,” she greeted. “I don’t know if this is at all possible, but I was wondering if you could let us up to Laurel Lance’s apartment. I, uh, I lent her something before she left, and I really need it back. I heard her things haven’t been moved.”

“It’s not exactly our policy,” the doorman hedged.

“I know. Really I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t have to,” Thea said, laying on the charm pretty thick, Roy noted. “I’ve been hoping we’d all hear something from Laurel before now.”

“We all were,” the man commiserated.

“And I didn’t want to make Officer Lance come here himself if it was too hard for him,” his girlfriend continued. Out of the corner of his eye, Roy saw Sin giving Thea a considering, impressed look.

“That’s very considerate of you.” The doorman sighed, the buttons of his waistcoat straining slightly. “Just this once should be alright.”

“Thank you so much,” Thea gushed with a winning smile, and yeah, Roy was pretty impressed too.

“So what exactly are we looking for?” He finally broke his silence once the door to the missing lawyer’s home was firmly shut behind them.

“I don’t know,” Thea admitted. “A note or a clue. Something that seems off. Wrong, like you said.”

They spread throughout the main room. Roy glanced about the décor with little interest. It was a clutter far more organized than his and Thea’s apartment. What caught his eye, however, was the one cleared spot on a table set against the wall. Post-it notes and pens littered the surface all around a seemingly invisible border of blank rectangle set right in the middle. A charge cord still in the socket confirmed his guess.

“Laptop’s missing.”

“I’ll check her room,” Thea announced, striding quickly down a short hall.

“Abercrombie.” Sin had what looked like a photo album that had been sitting on the coffee table. She’d flipped it open and held it out when he took a few steps closer. “What’s this?”

Her finger rested on a photo of their missing lawyer and another young woman who bore more than a passing resemblance. They had their arms thrown around each other with matching smiles.

“Uh, her sister, I think.”

“Sister?”

“Yeah, the one that died on the boat,” he said, more sure of himself the longer he looked at it. He lifted his gaze to Sin. “Why do you care?”

She flinched, jerking the album back towards herself. “Nothing. I just recognized her. I thought.”

“You thought you recognized a girl that died when we were kids?” He asked in a flat voice. “What’s going on, Sin?”

“None of your business, Abercrombie.”

“She’s your friend,” he realized. “The woman in black you didn’t want me to find.”

Sin didn’t tell him he was right in words, but the glower and clenched jaw were more than enough.

“We should tell Thea.”

“What? No.” She grabbed his arm. “Not unless you want me to spill the beans about you and the Arrow.”

“She already knows,” he admitted. “Thea asked me about it the other night point blank and I…I couldn’t lie to her like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well aren’t you Boyfriend of the Year. We’re still not telling her about Sara. I promised to keep her secret, I shouldn’t even have told you. Sara doesn’t have anything to do with this. She didn’t even contact her family when she got back, not till you started sniffing around for the Arrow. I didn’t even know she had family here at first.”

“You’re sure it has nothing to do with this?” She nodded. Roy dragged a hand through his hair. “Fine, I won’t say anything yet. But if it turns out she _is_ connected to Laurel’s disappearance—”

“Okay, yeah, you can tell your girlfriend. Not like that’s gonna happen. You think they went on a sisters’ road trip or something?” Sin scoffed. She dropped the photo album back on the table, walking away from him.

“Well something made her pack up and leave all of a sudden,” he grumbled. Sin didn’t acknowledge him, but that probably had more to do with Thea coming back into the room.

“The laptop’s not in her room, either. So that means someone had to take it, right?”

“Uh, yeah I guess so. Or she did,” he offered.

“That’s gotta mean something,” his girlfriend determined. “Come on, we’ve been up here pretty long.”

“Surprised he even let us,” Sin remarked. “Swanky place like this. That doorman sure had a soft spot for her.”

“Laurel’s lived here for years, practically since I can remember,” Thea explained as they entered the elevator.

“Then maybe you should talk to him a little more,” their friend suggested. “If he knew her well enough, he might have noticed when she left.”

Thea practically sprang out of the elevator once the doors opened, making a beeline for her quarry. She was mildly terrifying on the chase like this, Roy noted, yet he couldn’t help being in awe.

“I hope you found what you were looking for, Miss Queen,” the doorman said upon spotting her.

“I think I did, yeah,” she agreed. “I just wish we could find out something about Laurel. Where she is, if she’s okay…”

“Yes, that would be the ideal situation.”

“Who’s paying the rent?” Roy questioned. The man turned to him a little sharply, so he worked to make his tone more casual. “I mean, her father’s on a cop salary. Can’t be easy.”

“I think her mother,” was the doorman’s answer. “There have been checks coming in from Central City. Management isn’t going to make any decisions until the lease is up, at least. The apartment’s being kept the way it is.”

“What about her car?” Thea asked next.

He shrugged. “Still in the underground garage. It’s strange thinking back on it now…she asked me to call her a cab one night because she was busy packing. At the time, I thought she might have been going on a vacation. I guess I should have realized—”

“Did you hear the destination?” Sin cut in impatiently through the man’s troubled reverie.

He gave a slight frown. “No, I was putting her luggage in the trunk. And as I said, at the time I didn’t think something might be wrong.”

“Has anyone else been by the apartment since?” Thea asked in a far kinder tone, after she’d shot Sin a look. “Aside from her dad, I mean. Or did anyone visit her before she took the cab?”

“Well, that’s trickier. It’s been a while, you know. She was spending a lot of time out of the building at work. Not that that was really unusual. Actually, the last visitor I can really recall is…well, your brother, Miss Queen.”

“Ollie?” Thea’s expression was an interesting mix of surprised and irritated, no doubt at the reminder of the brother she was currently trying to ignore the existence of. Roy could relate. “Are you sure?”

“Very. He, ah, stayed rather late,” answered the man with a pointed look.

“Oh,” Thea said faintly.

“That’s really all I can tell you three. I’ve probably said more than needed as is,” the doorman stated, suddenly finding the shine on his shoes very interesting.

“Well, thanks,” Roy said for them, as Thea didn’t look about ready to respond. “Guess we just have to wait and see.”

“Too right you are, young man. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Another cab had just pulled up to the front, one of the residents likely stepping out of it.

“Sure.” He looked over at Sin, who shrugged and headed out onto the pavement, and then Thea, who seemed to take a second longer to notice. They both fell into step with their friend, but Roy couldn’t help noticing his girlfriend’s continued reticence as they walked.

“So, where to next? The train station? Airport?” He prompted. “Want to interview all the stewardesses whether they saw her or not?”

“Ollie saw her.” Thea wasn’t even looking at him. He didn’t think she was looking at anything, just staring off at some fixed. “Before he left, he…they were together.”

“Yeah, I think we all got that,” Sin commented dryly.

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Thea insisted. “He loved her. He still did, after all those years. Why? Why is he pretending not to care?”

“Who knows why your brother does anything?” Roy replied, at a loss. “Look, Thea, it’s probably got nothing to do with Laurel disappearing. Didn’t he leave a month before she did?”

“Yeah, but I just don’t know,” his girlfriend said, throwing her arms up. “I mean, a year ago I wouldn’t have thought that mom would be in jail because she was coerced into helping Malcolm Merlyn commit mass murder.”

“Well when you put it that way—” Sin started to concede.

“We don’t know anything yet,” he said with a warning look to the other woman. Roy wasn’t sure why he was arguing the point, defending Oliver Queen of all people. But he knew despite the current rough patch, for whatever reason Thea loved her brother. She’d be shattered if it turned out he’d had something to do with this.

“No we don’t,” Thea murmured. Though she was seemingly agreeing with him, Roy couldn’t help but notice the fists now clenched at her sides. “Not yet.”

She continued walking ahead of them both, and all Roy could think was that if the older man _had_ been involved…he’d better start praying.

\---

John had called to say he was coming in late. Oliver was pretty sure he knew why. He also wished the happiness and the smile he’d injected into his voice over the phone hadn’t needed to be faked.

Oliver readied his stance and then jumped, catching the bar in his hands on the first rung of the salmon ladder.

It had been hard, simply put, having to watch his friend reconnect with Lyla Michaels. The obvious care and affection in their voices, their closeness on the plane ride home, their easy intimacy. Thinking about his own relationship, the similarities and differences. Wondering at whether or not he could have that, too, if things were simpler.

Another rung.

It wasn’t the sex. If he just wanted that, he could’ve had it from Isabel in Russia. Maybe he should have, considering how he’d had to shut her down instead and likely make things between them more strained in the office. But the way he’d left things with Laurel, it would have felt like a betrayal. He’d already done that to her once. Never again.

Another and another.

Of course he was worried the most about her safety; it was why he was paralyzed between following Sara’s advice and trusting his own ability. But more than that he simply _missed_ Laurel. Missed the idea of sitting in her apartment splitting a pint of ice cream between them, missed working with her to bring the wealthy and untouchable in this city to justice, missed her warmth and her smile and her voice and the way she pressed up onto her toes to kiss him.

He hung from the bar on the final rung, spent despite only having just begun his usual workout. But he’d been growing tired for a while now. He was constantly running back and forth between his two jobs with no life to even try to enjoy in between, and he could privately admit as Dig had predicted all those months ago it was finally catching up to him.

Oliver could pretend all he wanted that he was better off isolated and alone, but it was the greatest lie he’d ever told. He needed his family back. And he needed Laurel in his life like he’d needed her photograph to hang onto all those long years away.

“Oliver?” Felicity called up to him. “You have an appointment in the alley.”

“Right,” he acknowledged on a breath. It wasn’t a surprise that Roy was trying to contact him after the Arrow would have been absent the past few nights they were out of the country. At the least his mission for the city was about to gain some form of direction or other for the next short while. He doubted the younger man realized just how much even this little bit helped.

Oliver dropped down to the mat, wiping the sweat from his body with a towel and opening the glass case for his suit. Dressed and with greasepaint applied, he left the base, only to circle back around and approach the alley behind the club from a different angle.

Roy was not visible, he noted almost immediately. Before his suspicion could grow too much, however, a figure emerged from the shadows at the other end of the alley, and the grip on his bow tightened painfully.

“ _Oh, woah!_ ” Felicity exclaimed on her end of the com. “ _Oliver, I swear it was Roy who put in the fletchette, I had no idea—_ ”

“Hi.” The interloper’s greeting was small, maybe even a little afraid. But Thea drew in a breath, squared her shoulders, and continued in a far more determined voice, “I know I’m not who you were expecting, but this isn’t a trick. I haven’t told the police and I’m not going to.”

He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. His sister stood only twenty feet away after more than a week, and was eyeing him with wariness and uncertainty. Oliver had never faced her as the vigilante like this, never planned for this to happen. It was never _supposed_ to happen.

“I need your help,” she added after he stayed silent.

“ _With what?_ ” It was out of his mouth before he’d even registered the thought, and he nearly flinched at the harsh, distorted tone.

But Thea wasn’t backing down. “I don’t know what I think of you. You saved my life once, and my boyfriend’s life, and you’ve helped a friend of mine. Laurel Lance. You also threatened my mom—but that was because of the Undertaking, right? That’s what you do,” she sought to confirm, taking a step forward. He matched it with one backward. “You find out the truth about other people and then you try to stop them.”

“ _Why are you asking?_ ” It was only due to the voice modulator that his voice came across authoritative, rather than increasingly panicked as she came even closer.

“ _Oliver, get out of there._ ” Felicity’s voice was white noise in his ear. How could she expect him to listen now, when his sister had come to him for help? It was _Thea_. He had to know.

“Because of Laurel,” Thea revealed, and his stomach dropped. “She’s been missing for five months…and I think my brother knows something about it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, big apologies for the wait! I realize this is a week later than I said it'd be, but I just needed some extra time to be really satisfied with the chapter. As always, thanks so much for the comments, kudos, and bookmarks! I love hearing from you all about my writing and knowing that people are enjoying the story.
> 
> As an update, I have decided to create a [tumblr](https://raywritesthings.tumblr.com/) in order to be more accessible and so you don't have to wait for chapter updates to hear from me. Feel free to stop by and say hello!
> 
> Many thanks to colorofmymind for her wonderful beta-ing. Any canon dialogue you recognize is not mine. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Thea stood in the alley behind her club, feeling breathless with a strange sort of nervous exhilaration. It was like when she’d saved Roy during the Undertaking with a well-aimed bottle to the back of some mugger’s head, and she wondered if this was the sensation her boyfriend had been seeking all those nights he’d pounded the pavement in search of something to fight.

The man who inspired that in him was only several feet away, his face cast in deep shadow by a streetlamp behind him. He looked as immovable as a statue. And just as silent as one, too.

“Well?” She spoke again. Thea had kind of been expecting some reaction to her bold declaration.

“ _Why would you think that?_ ” The Arrow finally asked, and was she mistaken or did he sound unsettled? It was so hard to tell with that distorted voice.

“He was one of the last people to be seen at her apartment, she asked me how to get in touch with him right before she disappeared,” she listed off, “and when he first got back he was all ready to start a search trying to find her but then in the last week or so he basically gave up on it. What else am I supposed to think?”

He was silent. She wondered if that was the vigilante equivalent of a shrug.

“He won’t talk to me about it. I just thought maybe you could find out more. Not by hurting him!” She rushed to clarify. “But like, question him, that sort of thing.”

“ _I…I don’t—_ ” Was he _stuttering_? “ _This isn’t what I do._ ”

Thea couldn’t help it. She let out a scoff. “What, you don’t question and-or threaten rich people to find out their secret, potentially shady dealings?” Here she’d thought she’d need to be cowering in respect and possible pleading, but now she’d suddenly found herself on the offensive. “Am I talking to the right vigilante, or have you been playing my boyfriend for a sucker?”

“ _What I do is help the people of this city,_ ” he continued, ignoring her.

“And Laurel doesn’t count? _She_ helped _you_ , before anybody else! And you’re just not even going to try?”

The man was silent. Typical.

Thea scoffed again. “You know what? Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe Laurel just left the city because she realized what a disappointment it’d been. Maybe she got tired of people using her and then leaving her behind!”

For the first time in the entire confrontation, the vigilante took a step toward her, fist clenched and face entirely in shadow. Thea remembered why people found him so intimidating. “ _There is more at stake here than you could possibly understand!_ ”

Thea stared up at him, wide-eyed. She hardly dared to speak for a long moment. “So…you _are_ looking into it?”

His other hand clenched around his bow. The vigilante pivoted sharply away from her, pointing it into the air. “ _This conversation is done_.” An arrow with what looked like some kind of cable was fired, attaching to the roof of a nearby building, and then he was

“Hey! _I_ wasn’t done!” Thea glared at his back as it disappeared over the rooftop. It was useless, unless she wanted to continue shouting at the sky.

She shouldn’t have expected so much. She should’ve prepared herself for some disappointment. All she’d really gotten was a possible confirmation that the vigilante was _maybe_ looking into Laurel’s disappearance. And if he was, then he wasn’t willing to share the details with her.

She leaned back against the club wall, drained and not up to telling her boyfriend she’d probably blown his connection to the Arrow for nothing. Roy hadn’t deserved that, but he’d helped her all along anyway.

Now that the adrenaline rush was fading she felt so stupid. She’d put herself in the path of a vigilante who had once threatened her own mother, all on the hope that he possibly somehow cared enough about another person to help her. Well, Thea had naively thought Oliver cared enough about Laurel to help her, too, and look where that’d gotten her; asking a hooded stranger to target her own brother. At least she had the consolation that she really did take after mom.

Thea’s phone started buzzing in her pocket, and she fished it out before drawing a sharp breath at the name on the screen. _Ollie_. Of all the coincidences.

“Hey,” she greeted, tone flat.

“Hey, Speedy,” her brother replied. He was soft and seemingly uncertain of his welcome. “I know we haven’t talked since, well.”

“Yeah.”

“Mom’s trial is in two days,” he stated, switching tracks completely. “And I think it would mean a lot to her if we could just put aside any disagreements we might have for the time being. I wish I could explain—”

“Why can’t you?” She demanded.

“Thea, it’s- it’s complicated.” He hadn’t been expecting her to push back, she realized. Well, too bad. This wasn’t good enough.

Thea gave her head a little shake before speaking into the phone, “Ollie, of course I’m coming to the trial, and I’m going to be there with you to support mom. You’re my family. But,” she continued before he could speak, “so is Laurel.”

“I know. Thea, please believe me, I know.” He wasn’t placating her; the sincerity of his tone was unmistakable. It somehow didn’t make any of this better.

“Then why are we on different sides about this? What don’t I understand?”

“I wish I could explain,” Oliver repeated. It was that part that felt hollow. All of the unexplainable things that had happened the past year he’d come back from that island, her brother had never explained. And it was about time she realized he never would.

“Well since you can’t…I guess I’ll see you in two days. Bye, Ollie.” Thea hung up the phone before she could think about hesitating, then blew out a breath as she stared down at it.

She always did this, didn’t she? Burned all her bridges when things just didn’t work out. For once she felt like she had a real reason. With a sigh, Thea left the alley for the club. Better to just get it over with and tell Roy the bad news.

She wondered if that bridge would end up burned, too.

\---

Felicity frowned as she settled behind her monitors. She’d been frowning a lot today. Actually, she’d been frowning since last night when Oliver had ignored her and decided to have a conversation with his little sister in his Arrow persona.

Even that bit of stupidity wouldn’t have had her in a mood for the whole next day. But then Oliver had reentered the base after that fun family chat looking distressed and, distressingly, contemplative.

“That was a really close call,” Felicity had felt the need to point out, rising from her chair to meet him at the bottom of the stairs. “Why would you _ever_ let Thea get that close to you? She could have seen your face, figured out everything!”

“I know.” He’d waved her off. “She’s been looking into Laurel’s disappearance because I said I wouldn’t. And now she thinks _I_ was involved?” Oliver had set his bow on a table and then braced his hands against it. He’d shaken his head. “This has gone too far.”

Felicity had spun around on her heels to face him fully. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“I came back from the island this time for my family, Felicity,” he’d reminded. “And then I realized that there was good I could still do for this city, but it wasn’t what brought me back here. But for everything I’ve tried to accomplish as the Arrow…I’ve gotten nowhere looking for Laurel—”

“Sara said not to,” she’d pointed out.

“And now Thea is going to illegal vigilantes for help because she can’t go to me.”

“Well, technically, she is still going to you. In a roundabout sort of way, but it all works out in the end, right?”

Olive had glanced to the side at her, then looked away again. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Oliver—”

“I thought I couldn’t tell them the truth. That it wouldn’t be safe for them to know. But when has it ever kept them safe?”

“Oliver…” Felicity had paused, terrified to even speak it into reality. “You’re thinking about telling Thea the truth?”

He’d straightened back up then and turned back around to face her, standing tall and resolute. “I think I have to, Felicity.”

“But what about what you just said to her on the phone?” He’d still been wearing his com when he’d called Thea only moments after leaving her behind in that alley, so Felicity hadn’t felt it too much a breach of privacy to listen in. “Doesn’t that fix things? You’ll see her at the trial, you can talk to her again there.”

“Thea wants to be there for my mother as much as I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m forgiven. Not when she knows I’m lying.” He’d sighed. “I’m tired of shutting her out of my life or of making her shut me out of hers.”

“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” she’d blurted before she could think of a gentler way to phrase things. Oliver had looked at her sharply. “It’s just—secret identity? Thea doesn’t _have_ to know, I mean, it's not _necessary_ for the whole vigilante-ing thing. Maybe just tell her about the Sara stuff, so then she knows why we shouldn’t look for Laurel. Like how we did with Officer Lance. And that would be enough…right?”

His lips had turned down and he’d given a slow shake of the head. “Not enough. Not for me.” Then he’d walked away to begin putting his gear back in the case.

Oliver hadn’t spoken to her directly since then outside of the hated pantomime that was their day jobs. Talk about shutting someone out.

And now with just the barest of glances her way and a nod to Diggle, Oliver finished suiting up and then left the base for a night of patrol. Felicity watched him go, frowning even more.

“Alright, what’s bothering you?”

Apparently John had been watching her watch Oliver. She wished she could say that wasn’t a common occurrence.

“How are you not bothered?” She questioned instead. “Oliver is seriously thinking about telling Thea everything.”

Her friend lifted one shoulder in a shrug before he dropped into the chair next to hers. “I think it’d be good for him.”

“What?” She gaped, aghast. “No, Digg, you’re supposed to be on _my_ side here. We’re his teammates. We have to look out for him, make sure he doesn’t make any bad decisions—and this would be, like, the _baddest_ one.” Felicity held up a hand. “I know baddest is not a word, I just—”

“Would it really be all that bad, though?”

“Of course it would be! Oliver always makes bad decisions when it comes to his family, or anybody he knew before the island, really. He gets too emotional about it, like how he was totally blindsided by the fact his mom was working with Malcolm Merlyn all last year. I mean, what if he tells Thea and she decides to turn him in?”

John gave her a look. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know. But she could, couldn’t she?” Moira would, probably. If it advanced some kind of plan of hers, Felicity was sure of it.

John was shaking his head. Clearly she needed to try a different tactic.

“Look, I just think that the way things are right now is perfect. He’s got Thea for the Oliver Queen stuff and us for the Arrow stuff. The three of us make a really great team. What if this messes it all up?”

John drew in a breath, then nodded once. “Okay, I see now.”

Her eyes narrowed. “See what?”

“Felicity, you don’t need to worry about the team. Just because Oliver might tell Thea doesn’t mean we’re suddenly not going to be helping him be the Arrow. It just means he’ll have someone else there to confide in. And he needs that, badly.”

She glanced down at her hands resting over the keyboard. “He could confide in me. In both of us, I mean. About more than just vigilante stuff.”

“Well, right now things are pretty separate. He’s Oliver for Thea and the Arrow here,” he echoed her words. “Telling Thea about all this just might make it easier for him to talk to you or me about stuff that’s not work.” He waited until she was looking at him again to offer her a sympathetic smile. “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Oliver’s family is important to him. If he’s going to open up to anybody first, it’s going to be them.”

“Must be nice,” she remarked. Felicity hadn’t really seen much reason to think family was all that important for a very long time. She wondered if Oliver would ever consider her like family, the way he apparently already did about Laurel.

John mercifully chose not to pry. “You know, that reminds me. I’m going to need to head out early. I promised Carly I’d take AJ with me to get vaccinated. Flu season’s coming up.” He reached for the coms to relay that information to Oliver.

Felicity wheeled her chair over to a different workstation and booted up her secondary monitor. As she waited, she rested her hand to the side—only for her fingers to brush over the closed lid of a laptop. Laurel’s laptop.

She’d never gotten around to searching it in the aftermath of their Sara discovery, and then she simply hadn’t seen a need to once the other woman had given her advice to discontinue the search. With the way he was acting lately, however, Oliver was likely to decide to completely disregard Sara’s warning and begin looking anew. Felicity wondered what she might find if Oliver asked her to examine the device. Lawyer casefiles? Drafts of emails that began with _Ollie_ and ended in _Love always_? She wondered how much longer she could put off that hacking job.

Felicity tapped the lid twice more, then let her hand slide off it.

\---

Sebastian drummed his fingers against his desk, restraining himself from checking the clock again. It was getting late, and if the rumors and reports were true then it was growing increasingly unlikely that he would be hearing good news tonight.

Yet scarcely had he finished the thought before there was a knock at his office door. “Come in,” he called out, and just the man he’d been waiting to see entered. “Officer Daily,” he greeted, “I trust you were successful?”

“Yes and no. The…assistance you originally wanted to give the Count was stopped. He won’t be making any trouble in Starling.”

His fingers finally stopped their drumming, and Sebastian could finally breathe easier. “He’s been detained?”

Daily grimaced. “He slipped us. Managed to inject his guard with some of the little Vertigo he had left in his own supply. We tracked him to the train station, and we believe he’s smuggled himself out of the city.”

Well, it wasn’t the ideal conclusion, but it was close enough. He rose from his desk to stand at the window, looking out over the streets. “And the Arrow?”

“Didn’t make an appearance. He hasn’t found us, I assure you.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“I thought—” Daily began, then hesitated.

Sebastian glanced over his shoulder at him. “Thought what?”

“I thought the idea was to help the Count get the Arrow’s attention and let them destroy each other. Not that I’m questioning you, Brother Blood,” Daily hastened to add.

“No, you’re right to question. That was the original plan. But unleashing Vertigo on the people of this city seemed too high a price to pay for that outcome. The Arrow has not interfered directly with us yet as you say, Brother Daily. And he will be taken care of soon.” Sebastian turned around fully. “Now I need you to prepare the subjects. We will be testing the Miracle again.”

“Of course, Brother Blood.”

“Thank you, Brother Daily.” With a single nod, the dirty cop knew he was dismissed and quickly left the office. Sebastian sank back into his desk chair, the last of the tension leaving his body. Daily had no idea what a relief his latest report had been.

Yet a frown marred his lips. His initial plan involving Vertigo had called for the suffering of innocent civilians, but it would have been a temporary, calculated risk. And all the more likely to destabilize the people’s faith in the current system to protect them. Had the Arrow engaged the Count and one or both of them had fallen in that confrontation, all the better to his mind.

But, he had been forcibly reminded, that had not been his call to make. That was the real reason he’d had his followers rescind his support of the drug dealer’s plan. The truth was, his benefactor was far more interested in the Arrow staying alive...at least for now.

“He must suffer by my hand before he is allowed to die,” Slade Wilson had commanded the previous night from behind his own desk while Sebastian had been the one to stand at attention.

“Then you plan to reveal yourself?” Sebastian had asked.

The other man had shaken his head. “Not yet. But soon, sooner than I had imagined. His suffering has already begun, and I must change my plans accordingly.”

“Then you know who he is under that hood,” he’d realized.

“I know exactly who he is,” Slade Wilson had confirmed. “He’s my friend. And my friend has lost someone I have been informed he still loves very, very much.” The man had leaned forward. “I am going to help him find her.”

Sebastian shook himself from the recollection, giving his watch another glance. The preparations would be complete in only a few minutes. He left his office.

Upon arriving Sebastian paused before the entrance to secure his mask and activate the vocal distortion.

Daily looked up as soon as he opened the door. “We are ready to begin, Brother Blood.”

“ _Very good_ ,” Sebastian said. Through the mask, he observed first their most recent subject, a young man from the blood drive he’d held in the Glades. Then he looked to the dirty cop. “ _But you are not needed to continue the tests. I have another task for you, Brother Daily._ ”

“I am ready, Brother Blood,” was the immediate response.

“ _You will focus your intelligence gathering from the SCPD and make regular reports to me on one of your colleagues in particular: Officer Lance_.”

\---

Oliver stood, waiting. Thea sat, waiting. Neither of them spoke.

It had been an unusually quiet week since he, Diggle, and Felicity had returned from Russia. He wished he could have appreciated it. But between his nerves over his mother’s impending trial and his outright fear and confliction and exhaustion concerning how to handle the mess he’d made of his and Thea’s relationship, Oliver could have used the distraction of some serious criminal activity.

Now their mom had been miraculously acquitted of all charges and was on her way home, and he had yet to make amends with Thea. But despite what he’d said to Felicity…he wasn’t sure if he could really go through with it.

He looked at the clock on the wall. Their mom’s car would be arriving soon. He drew in a breath.

“Thea, we need to talk about this.”

“I don’t have anything else to say, and apparently you don’t either so…” she trailed off and shrugged, all without even looking at him.

“Mom’s going to be home soon,” he tried. “She’s going to notice that we’re not really talking, and that’s if she hasn’t noticed already.”

“Well, after tonight I can just keep living at Roy’s and come visit mom during the day while you’re at the company. There, problem solved.”

“You know that’s not what she wants. It’s not what I want, either,” he added in an injured tone.

“None of us want it, Ollie, but I can’t just…” From what little he could make out of her profile, Thea was screwing up her expression. Then she finally looked his way. “I have tried, okay, to overlook a lot since you’ve come back from the island. And I am not always good at it, I know, but I try. I know you’re probably going through a lot, and I know it’s not easy, but I also know you’re not telling me about any of it. Do you know how that feels?”

His gaze dropped to his shoes.

“I _want_ to understand you, Ollie, but I cannot do that if you won’t let me in. And that’s…I thought I could accept that. I thought maybe, at least, you were letting Laurel in. But clearly I was wrong about that, too.” He heard her shift on the couch, orienting herself away from him. “It’s hard to keep trying when I feel like I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I know,” he agreed softly. “And I’m sorry, Thea, I really am.” He took a step towards her, but she didn’t react. “I haven’t made you feel all that welcome in my life since I came back. I’ve held you at a distance. I don’t want to do that anymore…but I understand if you can’t forgive me. Or trust me. I know I haven’t given you any reason to.”

Thea still didn’t look at him, but she did ask, “What makes you think I don’t trust you?”

“Because I was one of the last people to be seen at Laurel’s apartment. Because she asked you how to get in touch with me right before she disappeared. Because when I first got back I was all ready to start a search trying to find her but then last week I basically seemed to give up on it.” He watched as first her shoulders tensed, and then as she turned slowly to face him again, mouth falling open and eyes wide. “Does that sound about right?” He asked.

“How…how did you know I said those things?” Thea’s voice was faint, her gaze darting about now as if she didn’t know how to take him in.

Oliver hesitated. It didn’t have to be the truth. He could easily make up some lie, spin some story about how he might’ve come across those words some other way. He didn’t have to change everything, did he?

But as he looked at her, small and lost and so alone, Oliver knew that she only was that way because he had caused it.

Yes, he did.

“Because you said them to me.”

Thea’s legs slid off the couch onto the floor, and she pushed herself up to standing. Oliver kept still as she approached, eyes searching his face. “You?”

He allowed just the barest of hopeful smiles as he nodded once.

Her hand came up to her mouth and she rocked back onto her heels once. And then: “You saved my life. You saved Roy’s life. You rescued Walter. And you _attacked_ mom.”

The smile turned to more of a grimace, and he muttered a quiet, “I interrogated her.”

“She _shot_ you.”

“I remember that, Thea. Vividly. But that was because of the Undertaking, so nothing like that is ever going to happen again, okay?” Tentatively, he started to reach out and touch her shoulder. “You’re okay, Thea?”

“Okay?” She echoed. “You just told me you’re the vigilante, and you’re asking me if I’m _okay_?”

At the last second, his hand flinched and fell away from her. “I—no, you’re right, you shouldn’t be okay with this.” He’d known this was going to change how she saw him forever. He should have been glad she recognized the danger he presented, Oliver reflected.

“Yeah. I mean, give me a day to process this at least,” Thea was saying.

Oliver blinked. “What?”

“I don’t even know how to feel. Everything just _makes sense_ now!” His sister declared. She paced away and then back towards him as she listed, “The disappearing for hours, the secretiveness. Your ex-girlfriend becoming the Huntress? How did I not see that?”

“You’re…you’re not upset,” he checked, dumbfounded.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, though her mannerisms and tone had not lost that excited energy his revelation had seemingly caused. “All those times I was upset you weren’t home or you ditched on me and mom, and you were out there trying to stop Malcolm Merlyn, or you were saving people…how could I be upset you were doing that?” She took a step closer to him, and it was wonder, not fear in her eyes. Oliver hardly dared believe it. “If I’d just known…why didn’t you tell me? Why are you telling me now?”

“I was tired of lying,” he answered simply. “I was tired of watching what it was doing to us and knowing it was all because of me.”

Thea’s eyes widened. “I asked you to interrogate yourself.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the breaking point,” he admitted.

His sister was shaking her head, the corners of her mouth curving up in incredulity. “I cannot _believe_ I—wait, but, if you’re the vigilante…why _aren’t_ you looking for Laurel?”

“There was a complication, but that’s over now,” he stated firmly. “I’m going to find her.” His heart leapt at the sight of Thea full-on beaming at him.

“Really?”

“Really.” His arms were suddenly full; she’d launched herself at him in a hug.

“I knew you couldn’t give up, I _knew_ it,” she said into his shoulder with conviction. It hit him then, really, as he held onto her. Thea knew, and she accepted it. She was _happy_.

She’d turned her face slightly to be heard more clearly as she murmured, “Thank you.” Oliver drew in a shuddering breath and blinked heavily to beat back the stinging at the corners of his eyes.

Both of them startled at the sound of the front door opening. He’d completely lost track of time, Oliver realized, and he let Thea go just as their mother entered the room.

“Well I must say, it is _very_ good to be home again,” she said, and he saw the tension in her frame melt away under the warmth of her smile.

“Mom.” Thea crossed over to her and embraced the older woman.

“My baby girl.” Her eyes closed for a single, long moment, then opened to spot him across the room. “Is everything, alright?”

Thea pulled back with wide eyes. “Uh, yeah. Ollie and I were just, uh—”

“We’re just really glad you’re home, mom,” he finished for her. “We missed you.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Their mother held out one of her arms, a clear invitation.

Thea gave him a grateful look and a mouthed, “Sorry.” He just shook his head, an involuntary grin tugging at his lips, before walking the short distance to join his family.

For the first time in years, it was truly starting to feel like one again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here with the next chapter for you all! Thanks again for your patience, for all your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. this chapter covers events in "The Scientist" and once again any familiar dialogue is not mine. Unfortunately, colorofmymind is away for a school trip and thus unavailable for beta-ing so apologies in advance for the no doubt extra amount of mistakes. Otherwise, please enjoy and let me know what you thought at the end of the chapter!

It was a whole different atmosphere than the one John was normally accustomed to on the drive over to the base. He supposed, however, that’s what happened when another passenger joined them.

“You don’t have to keep fidgeting you know, Speedy.”

“I’m not doing it on purpose. Am I not allowed to be a little excited about going to see your super-secret vigilante base?” In the rearview mirror, John watched Thea lean across the backseat to bump at her brother’s shoulder with her own. “You haven’t even told me where it is, yet.”

Oliver was keeping his face turned to the window for now, but his lips quirked up slightly. “You won’t believe it till you see it.”

“ _Ollie_.”

They were stopped at a light, so John chanced another glance just as Oliver looked to his sister. He was _grinning_. “Come on, you’re not going to let me surprise you?”

The light changed. John could still hear Thea’s grumbled, “Any more of your surprises and I think my whole world’s going to turn upside-down. I’m still processing _this_. If Roy ever finds out I knew before he did—”

“He’s not going to find out.”

“I know!” Thea was quick to reassure. “I’m just saying, in some hypothetical, if it were okay for him to know…I mean, I hope you know that after me, you’re like his whole world.” There was a moment of silence in the back. “God, he would be so disappointed if he found out it was you.”

John could practically hear the smirk in Oliver’s voice as he stated, “All the better reason not to tell him.”

“We’re here, you two,” he interrupted as he turned the car into the lot behind the club. As they all exited the car, the owner of said club was looking around in clear confusion.

“Wait, why’d you bring us to the Verdant?”

“You’ll see.” John didn’t think he’d ever seen Oliver smile so much in such a short amount of time, but there the man was, leading them on with quick strides into the empty Verdant and back to the door with its keypad.

Thea watched her brother punch in the numbers with widening eyes. She looked from Oliver, to John, and back again. “No.”

“Yeah,” Oliver confirmed.

“I cannot _believe_ you really put a secret entrance into the club!”

What John couldn’t believe was the fact that Oliver looked to be pressing his lips together to hold in a laugh. This was not the Oliver Queen, hooded vigilante that he knew. This was someone better. Whether it was Thea’s excitement getting to him or just the relief of one less secret to carry, he had not seen the man this energized, this objectively _cheerful_ , in a long time.

He’d told Felicity he believed Thea knowing would be a good thing for their friend. Seeing it, however, was an entirely different experience.

“Get ready to believe it,” John advised as the door finally swung open.

He followed the siblings down into the base, hanging back slightly as Thea turned her head this way and that, practically spinning on the heels of her shoes to take it all in at once.

“So?” Oliver asked, watching her as he leaned against the side of a table. “What do you think?”

Thea took a few slow paces to stand in front of the glass case containing the Arrow’s suit. “This is so… _cool_.” She turned back around on the spot, eyes locking on her brother. “Where’d you get the suit? What all is down here? Are those your arrows?”

“They are.” Oliver followed closely behind his sister as she approached that particular table. “Careful, those haven’t been sharpened yet, but they still—”

“I know, I know, I’m not five.”

He observed their easy bickering as they moved around the room like it was some kind of museum, Thea firing off questions at near a mile a minute and Oliver choosing to answer some while letting others pass unaddressed.

“And what about you?” John blinked as suddenly the younger Queen had seemingly whirled in his direction—Speedy was right—and looked at him with eyes alight. “I mean, you’re not both vigilantes, and Ollie’s got Roy reporting to him about the Glades.”

“John provides a level of support that only someone who knows my secret could. He’s indispensable,” Oliver declared, meeting his eyes with an affirming nod. “And he does help me in the field on occasion.”

“Right,” he agreed. “Basically I’m there for whenever he gets too in over his head.”

“Yeah?” Thea asked on something of a laugh while Oliver pulled an injured look.

“Happens more often than you’d think,” was John’s answer, before he added, “but I’m no vigilante.” At least not in name. But that was a slippery slope he’d successfully ignored for now.

The sound of the door opening again saved him from any further contemplation. Though Thea tensed, he and Oliver both remained calm. They all looked up just as Felicity paused on the stairs.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were doing the tour today. I can just—”

“No, no it’s fine. Thea, you know Felicity. She’s a part of the team, too,” Oliver explained.

“Cool,” was Thea’s comment. “So what do you do?”

Felicity looked from the younger woman to John, who gave an encouraging nod. Slowly, she finished descending the stairs. “I do the tech. It’s a lot more complicated than that, actually,” she continued, bypassing Thea to hover by her monitors. “This is my domain.”

“Okay.” Thea’s eyes slid to the side to land on one piece of tech in particular looking rather out of place with the rest of the setup. “What’s the laptop for?”

“It’s Laurel’s,” Oliver answered quietly, and at just the woman’s name Thea’s eyes lit up. John was starting to wonder if the lawyer had that effect on all Queens.

“Oh, so you took it! When I went to Laurel’s apartment it was missing. I should’ve known! So what’s on it? Did you find anything?” Her eager expression was not matched by her brother.

“Nothing, yet,” he admitted. “I was going to ask Felicity to start looking into it now.”

“You know, we haven’t actually discussed the issue of why we stopped looking in the first place,” the other woman pointed out.

“Mm-hm, and we’re not going to discuss it.”

“Oliver,” John stepped forward to intervene. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t be trying to find Laurel. I know it’s important to you. But we can’t just ignore the risks, either.”

“Risks? What risks?” Thea immediately demanded.

John held Oliver’s gaze for a long moment before the other man finally released a breath and looked to the floor. “There were…people targeting the Lance family a few weeks ago. The concern is that if we draw their attention in her direction by continuing the search, it could put her in danger.”

“But what if they find her on their own?” Thea’s eyes were quickly widening in fear. “What if they already have?”

“Exactly.” Oliver seized on that momentum, looking first to a frowning Felicity and then to Diggle. “Holding Laurel at arm’s length never kept her safe. I can’t protect her if I don’t know where she is or what’s happened to her. We need to be prepared for if the League comes back to try again.”

“That’s not the only eventuality you should prepare for,” Felicity spoke up again. “It’s been almost six months, Oliver. Two since you’ve gotten back. And those emails were pretty ominous.” When Thea turned to her with a questioning look, the blonde arched a single eyebrow. “You haven’t even told her about the emails?”

“Not yet,” Oliver hedged.

“Then should you really be getting her hopes up when you know Laurel was ‘running out of time’?”

“ _What_?” Thea was practically aghast at the pronouncement.

The look Oliver was leveling Felicity with indicated that John needed to step in once again. “Look, none of us know what’s happened to Laurel. Why she left, where she might be now. If we’re looking for her then we’re looking for her, but it’s not going to be as easy as just saying it. We’re looking for the truth…whatever it is.” He looked around at them, waiting until he’d gotten a nod from each. “So, where do we start?”

\---

Moira rolled over in a bed that felt much too large. Truthfully it was unclear whether that was due to her having grown accustomed to the standard-issue cot in her cell or if it was Walter she was still missing.

Her eyes strayed to the clock on the bedside table. Four in the morning. With a sigh, she sat up, reaching to flick on the lamp and then for the small stack of books next to it. She’d learned years ago to keep some reading on hand for sleepless nights like these.

Naively, she’d thought that with her acquittal would come peaceful rest. But ironically, now that she knew he was still alive, Malcolm was haunting her dreams more than ever.

Moira had not seen him since that night she’d been granted what was supposed to be her freedom, but knowing Malcolm as she did there was no doubt he was staying close. With his discovery about Thea there was no question.

It had never mattered in the slightest that he had fathered one of them; it had been Moira’s singular mission for nearly six years to keep her children safe from Malcolm Merlyn. Now, with few to no allies and her reputation in tatters, she struggled to see a way. If she threatened to expose him, all he would have to do would be to reveal his rigging of the jury. She would go back to prison, and Oliver and Thea would lose her all over again, possibly permanently. Her best hope was that Malcolm would continue to lay low, until she could devise some plan.

The faint crunch of tires on the gravel had her tensing—but Malcolm wouldn’t announce his presence that way. The sound of the front door opening and then whispers on the stairs confirmed her suspicions; her children were home.

Thea, of course, had a perfectly reasonable excuse for keeping such late hours, having inherited the nightclub business from her brother. And Moira was well-aware how her son chose to spend his nights. But the fact that they were arriving here together led her to an undeniable conclusion: Thea knew. And perhaps more importantly, Oliver knew that she knew. In fact he had probably told her himself.

Moira felt certain this was a recent development. Nothing in either of their actions or words had indicated this newfound understanding between them until just after she’d returned home. And Moira made it her business to know everything she could about her family, whether or not they were wise to it.

She wasn’t begrudging her children relying on each other. Far from it. Wistfully, she applauded Oliver’s ability the escape the shadow of secrecy that Moira had learned to shroud herself in years ago.

But for her to do the same, to tell Thea _her_ secret, would not be met with the same enthusiasm and closeness that her children now enjoyed. That was not in doubt at all. And what, if anything, would be to gain from it? No matter what she had to do, Moira would keep Malcolm away from her daughter with her dying breath if need be. Why destroy the memories Thea held of Robert for the knowledge of a father who had premeditated the slaughter of far more than five hundred and three people?

Oliver and Thea were approaching down the hall. Moira switched off the bedside lamp, sat in darkness, and listened to the soft murmurs of their voices as they passed her doorway, words indistinct. There was Thea’s door opening and closing. Soon Oliver would head around the corner for his own room, and then both of her children would be safely sleeping the few hours left in the night away. That alone calmed her considerably and she thought perhaps she could try for a little more rest herself.

Except there was a soft knock on her door at that very moment.

“Mom?”

“Sweetheart?” She pushed herself back up onto an elbow. “Is something wrong?”

Oliver pushed the door open and slipped inside. “No. I just thought I saw your light on from outside. Could you not sleep?”

“I’m afraid not,” she confessed with a sigh, then added, “and it would seem it’s a hereditary trait.”

He had the grace to look a little sheepish as he approached the foot of her bed. Moira reached for the lamp again. “Thea needed a ride home, and I was up anyway.”

She didn’t even blink at the lie by omission. “Well that was very thoughtful of you, Oliver. You and Mr. Diggle dropped her off as well, didn’t you? It’s good to see you two spending more time together.”

Her son was smiling now. “Yeah, it’s actually been pretty great. I don’t think we’ve really been this much of a family in a long time.”

Moira returned it warmly with one of her own. There were the secrets, of course—on both sides. Perhaps there always would be. But come what way, family was family. That was one thing she was proud to have passed on to her children.

“Actually, I was wondering,” Oliver continued. “Would you like to come to the company with me sometime this week?”

She felt her eyebrows begin to arch up into her hairline. “I’m not really sure if that’s appropriate, considering the manner in which I left it.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “You put in more work at that building than any employee it’s ever had. You helped dad make it a part of the city skyline. I wouldn’t be CEO without your advice. It’s a family company, mom. Always has been.”

Moira slid out from under the bedcovers, walking to him for a hug he readily returned. “Well with such an invitation how can I refuse?” She leaned back to look him in the eyes, hands resting on his shoulders. “Your father would be so proud of the man you’ve become. I know I am.”

“Thank you, mom,” he replied softly. “I try every day to be the man that all of you have wanted me to be.”

There was so much left unsaid between them, and yet Moira knew—and she thought Oliver might as well—that in this moment, they understood each other perfectly.

But it wasn’t the time for her to say. “All I want right now is for my son to actually get some sleep.” Oliver grinned down at her. She shook her head. “You’ve always been a night owl, though not necessarily to these extremes.”

“I wonder who I got that from?” He quipped, before turning and heading for the door. “Goodnight, mom.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Moira returned to her bed, but still did not find herself capable of settling down for the night. She did her best to read, though the pages did not hold her attention as well as usual. She glanced to the clock again. Another half-hour gone.

With a sigh, she rose, padding silently out into the hall.

Thea’s room was closest, and Moira found her already well into a night’s rest. She looked more like her baby girl than ever like this, face smoothed over and free from the stress and worries her mother had caused it. It seemed hard to believe she was already a young woman, self-sufficient with a full life of her own. Someday she might move out and live on her own, or perhaps with Roy, but for now this house was still her home. Moira slowly, quietly, closed the door.

She was even more cautious about Oliver’s; she knew firsthand that startling him in sleep could prove dangerous. He, like his sister, looked years younger. It was as if the clock had been turned back to before the years away, before the _Queen’s Gambit_ , before Malcolm was the towering, looming presence in their lives.

Like his mother, Oliver slept as though he owned only half the available space on the mattress. Like he was missing someone, too. Moira left for her room once more.

Her heart ached for her children, as it often did. Improving their situations had always been her life’s work; everything else was just the means to that end. She’d lost much of her power to achieve that, along with several months, but rigged jury or not she was back in the game.

It was time to start acting like it.

\---

Barry Allen was not having a very good time of it in Starling City. At least, not once he’d finally managed to make it _to_ Starling City.

Of course once he had it’d been pouring down rain, he’d ended up with a particularly difficult cab driver, then arrived late to a crime scene he wasn’t supposed to be at and made a pretty unfavorable impression upon both the cop in charge and the businessman who owned the building they were standing in, Oliver Queen. Neither man seemed any more enthusiastic about his theories than Joe or Captain Singh would be; not that Barry should have expected any better.

About the only person who seemed to like him was Mr. Queen’s personal assistant, Felicity Smoak. She’d invited him to set up in an open lab space at Queen Consolidated’s headquarters, and was now helping him as he ran tests on the evidence collected so far.

That help mostly consisted of fielding his many questions about her city’s famed vigilante, and it took Barry longer than it probably should have to realize she was uncomfortable with the topic.

But it likely wasn’t as severe as misstep as his mistakenly inferring she was in a relationship with her boss.

“Oh no,” Felicity rushed to correct him. “He and I are not—no. I do not like Oliver.”

Barry nodded quickly, not trusting himself to say something else stupid.

“I mean even if,” she added, “ _if_ there was any reason why we could ever possibly be like that…it wouldn’t happen. He’s got Laurel.”

“Laurel?” He asked. Funny, he felt like that name should mean something.

“Yeah, gorgeous Laurel,” Felicity sighed. “She’s his—something. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“Oh.” Now he thought he was beginning to understand. Barry knew very well what it was like to have…something, with someone. The complicated nature of his and Iris’ relationship, always dancing around trying to define it for fear of an absolute rejection. He wondered how a guy like Oliver Queen could have relationship troubles the same as a guy like him.

“And I really shouldn’t be talking about my boss’ missing ex to you,” Felicity said in a rush, as if suddenly coming back to herself. “Forget I said anything.”

Barry looked at her sharply. “Wait, missing?”

“Barry! Forget,” she ordered. “It’s this whole thing, and Oliver does not like talking about it, and he will be very upset if he finds out _we’re_ talking about it. So we’re not going to talk about it. We’re stopping, now.”

“Okay,” he agreed, drawing out the word slightly. Apparently men who could rip centrifuges out of the ground weren’t the only mystery plaguing his new acquaintances at Queen Consolidated.

Barry resolved to stick to his work, but like it often did as he waited for results, his brain kept whirring away. He knew he’d heard the name Laurel recently, or maybe he’d read it somewhere. In the news?

“You don’t mean Dinah Laurel Lance, do you?” He blurted, too fast to remember the _not talking about it_ rule. But the way Felicity’s shoulders tensed signified he was on the right track. “She’s that nonprofit lawyer, right? The one the vigilante saved.”

Felicity huffed out a laugh. “Which time?”

“Uh, well there was—you weren’t actually asking,” he realized belatedly.

“Good catch. Actually, what I _would_ like to ask you is—there’s this work function I’ve been invited to. And I have a plus one.” Felicity gave him a significant look, though when Barry said nothing she elaborated, “I was thinking…you’d make a really good plus one.”

Barry blinked. He could hardly believe his luck. After all that, Felicity was asking him out? “Well, yeah I’d, um—there’s not going to be dancing is there?” He checked nervously. “It’s just, I’m not too good on my feet.”

God, no wonder he never dated. He was hopeless.

\---

Roy was starting to wonder if he should go into business as a Missing Persons Agency. He was already doing the cops’ jobs for them.

Though while Sin’s missing friend Max was bad enough news already, even he was having trouble pinning down his girlfriend.

For reasons apparently unexplainable, Thea had completely turned around about her brother. They were practically inseparable these days, at least when he wasn’t at his multi-billion dollar company. Roy wanted to be happy for her; with the results of her mother’s trial she’d finally gotten her family back. But a part of him ironically found himself indignant on behalf of the woman Thea had enlisted his help for in the first place. What had happened to searching for Laurel Lance?

He held his tongue as they danced at the Queens’ rather lackluster party. It wasn’t really the time or place to question his girlfriend about her family.

But his phone buzzing broke whatever mood he might have otherwise been trying to set. Thea let him go easily in order for him to step aside and answer it.

It wasn’t good news.

“I found Max,” Sin told him flatly.

“Where?”

When she gave him the address, he promised immediately to meet her, hanging up the phone and looking back at Thea.

“They find Max?” She asked, already seeming to know. He nodded. “I’ll come with you.”

“No, you should stay here,” he said. “Your mom needs you.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll call you.”

Roy paused, drawing in a breath, before stating, “I think I need to bring the Arrow in on this.”

Thea worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “You really think you should?”

“I have to try.” Truthfully, he’d been anxious to reach out to the vigilante ever since his girlfriend’s arranged meeting. Would the Arrow still want to talk to him? Would he even show up? Roy had to know. And if it could help Sin, he needed to do this.

He met her just as the police were setting up a perimeter around the body. They were immediately shooed away by one of the officers, though not before Roy had gotten a good look at the late artist. Whatever cover story the cops were about to spin wouldn’t explain the blood running down from his eyes.

Armed with the fletchette and the photo he’d taken of Max, he returned to the alley behind the Verdant. But to his own surprise, he didn’t have to wait all that long.

There was no preamble, just a single impatient, “ _What?_ ”

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened with my girlfriend,” he started. “She just really cares about her friend.”

The vigilante remained silent. He’d chosen to show up, maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it.

“But it’s not just lawyers disappearing,” Roy continued. “There’s people in the Glades that go missing for days until their bodies are found, and the police aren’t doing anything about it. I think they’re covering it up.” The vigilante was still listening, and so further encouraged he added, “A friend of mine's friend, well, the cops think he OD’d, but we think he was murdered.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Well, he wasn't an addict, for starters. And this...this doesn't look like any OD I've ever seen.”

He’d barely shown him the image before the other man responded with a sharp, “ _Stay away from that._ ”

“You know something? What happened to him?” But the vigilante was not forthcoming. “You're the one who told me to be your eyes and ears on the streets,” he tried. And still nothing. Some partnership. He really wasn’t interested in anything any of them had to say, was he? “You know what, that is not good enough for me anymore.”

“ _Fine. Then we're done altogether._ ” The hooded man turned his back. Roy didn’t want it to sting as much as it did.

“I don't need you!” He cried. “I have friends that can help me. You can't stop us.” Then he turned and began walking away, too.

A single low growl was all the warning he got before the sound of an arrow singing through the air towards him. Roy flinched, but it whizzed clear over his head to embed in the alley wall. A second later, something on the end opened, and a cloud of smoke poured out, enveloping him in seconds.

Coughing, Roy staggered into the side of a dumpster. His legs wobbled, then gave out. But he never remembered hitting the ground.

“…Roy. Roy?” A voice was calling to him through the fog. It was a familiar one, and instinctively he strained to listen, to try and answer it. Roy’s eyelids fluttered, then blinked, then opened.

Thea’s face was the first and only thing he saw, hovering over him with a brow that was creased with worry. It smoothed out as he attempted a hoarse, “Hey.”

“There he is,” remarked a second voice. Sin was perched near the foot of the bed—Thea’s, at her mom’s, judging by the sheer size and opulence of the room. She passed Thea a glass of water which she helped him drink once he’d managed to prop himself up on weak arms.

“What happened?” He asked groggily once he’d finished.

“You tell us,” Sin replied.

“The Arrow,” he recalled hazily. “He used…some kind of gas? I feel heavy.” He was having trouble just thinking straight, much less holding his eyes open.

“Must have been some powerful stuff,” Sin remarked to Thea, who nodded.

“I thought he was going to shoot me,” he confessed, hating how pathetic it sounded as soon as the words left his mouth.

Thea’s eyes flashed. “He would’ve answered to me if he did,” she promised.

Somehow, Roy believed her.

\---

It had been a suicide mission. None of his bravado could change that fact. But that hadn’t made it any less necessary.

Oliver had been blindsided by the appearance of the Mirakuru—that wretched serum he’d thought long-destroyed and far in the past—just as much as he’d been blindsided by the forensic scientist who seemed to know so much about it. Barry Allen had turned out to be something of a dead end in that regard, however, just some clever kid who could read a crime scene and didn’t mind suspending his disbelief. Oliver…was probably just about to end up dead.

He didn’t know how long he laid there in the wreckage his behemoth of an opponent had left of him. All Oliver knew was that he was growing increasingly sluggish and weaker by the second.

His body was failing him. And he was failing the city.

He thought of Roy, angry at the world and at him, who he’d left in Thea’s capable care—Thea, who he hadn’t told where he was going and now never would. At least she’d known he was going. His mother was at home, waiting for a son who this time would not return. And he thought, as ever, of Laurel. Of how he’d left her behind and now would never find her, never see her again. He was letting them all down, and her most of all.

Diggle and Felicity would find him. Maybe they already had. He thought he could hear voices, if he struggled back to awareness hard enough.

“Let go, Oliver,” one called to him in particular. His head lolled to the side and he stared at a vision, at a memory come to life. “Don’t fight anymore,” Shado encouraged him with the same patience with which she’d taught him all those years ago. She reached out to him, her smile gentle and kind. “Stay with me.”

His arm fell to the side, palm up and open.

Everything else was fading…he felt as if he was being carried away from it all—the frantic voices and the bright lights and the _pain_ —on the sounds of a sea lapping against some distant shore.

 _Lian Yu_ , his brain supplied fuzzily, but as his eyelids fluttered open and closed it wasn’t that haunted landscape that met his sight. Sunlight warmed his skin; his head rested, not on the sand, but on the smooth expanse of a woman’s thigh; her hair fell over her shoulder in a curtain to tickle his cheek as she smiled down at him.

But it had not been Shado’s hand he had taken after all.

“Oh, Ollie,” the woman sighed. “What have you done to yourself?”

“…Laurel?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so! Realize this was a much, much longer wait than any of us hoped for. Many apologies on that. But, hopefully, once you've finished this chapter you will feel the wait worth it. I've also finished my semester so my free time has increased significantly, which is always good.  
> Couple things to keep in mind. This chapter sort of changes it up with style, following Oliver almost entirely through the events of "Three Ghosts". As such, there's also a lot of canon dialogue which does not belong to me. However, we've reached a point in the story where things are about to take a decidedly non-canon turn, so that's something to be excited about.  
> As always, a thousand thanks to my amazing beta colorofmymind. This chapter benefited immensely from her input and I couldn't do it without her. Many thanks to you all as well for your patience and encouragements. Thank you so much for reading, please enjoy, and let me know your thoughts!

Oliver’s heart sank. “This is heaven?”

Laurel’s head tilted to the side quizzically. “You sound pretty glum for someone asking if they’re in eternal paradise.”

“No, but—” He pushed himself up to sitting. “I’m dead. And  _ you’re _ dead.” All those weeks he’d been back saying to himself  _ when _ he found her…and it turned out Felicity was right. He shouldn’t have wasted so much time. He should have found Laurel sooner. How did he even deserve to be here with her?

But she was shaking her head. “You’re not dead, Ollie. Only nearly. And unless heaven really is a place on earth, why would it look like somewhere you’ve already been?” She gestured with one hand out across the shore. “Don’t you recognize it?”

He was loathe to take his eyes from her—was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to just pull her into his arms; she was  _ here _ and a part of him didn’t even care where here was—but eventually he managed it.

“It’s the beach,” he realized. “At Coast City.” He looked back over his shoulder, wondering if he could spot the old summer house from here.

“Mm-hm.” Laurel stood, eagerly holding her hands out for him to take. He did so without a second thought and was pulled up to his feet. “Remember, oh, about seven or eight summers ago?”

“Mom and dad let me invite you and Tommy along,” he recalled, casting his mind back. God, had it really been that long ago? It felt like another lifetime, between the island and…Tommy. Oliver tried not to think about that. “Your dad made my parents promise you’d call twice a day and once before bedtime.”

Laurel laughed, nodding her head at the memory. “Imagine if he ever found out about the bikini—”

“—you snuck in the suitcase,” he finished, smile only growing. He’d hardly needed a reminder for that. Laurel winked, then turned and started to walk along the beach. Oliver kept ahold of one of her hands as he followed along beside her.

“So what is this, then?” He asked as his toes dug into sand that was still packed and damp from the high tide. “A dream? Since I’m not dead.”

“You almost were,” she told him matter-of-factly. “I guess you needed somewhere to escape to, something to take your mind off it for a little while.”

He looked down at their joined hands. “And you’re a dream.”

She chuckled. “I think that’s pretty safe to say. It’s not the first time this has happened, anyway, is it?”

Oliver tugged them to a stop. “You don’t look like a dream. You look…real.” His other hand reached out and cupped her cheek, soft and warm under his callused palm. “You  _ feel _ real.”

She smiled up at him, gentle but sad. “That doesn’t change the fact that this can’t possibly be happening right now, Ollie.”

“I know,” he said, though it was drowned out by the waves washing up against the shore.

Laurel moved forward to pull him into her arms just before his face crumpled. He buried it in her shoulder, wondering if staying awake through the pain of almost dying would have been kinder but knowing in his heart he wouldn’t give up even this brief respite from the ache of his longing.

“I don’t want to wake up from you,” he confessed.

She caressed the back of his neck. “You have to. There’s people waiting for you. Your family, the team.”

Even as she said it, the warm light from the sun seemed to shift, becoming harsh and fluorescent. He could no longer hear the waves.

“ _ You _ won’t be.” She didn’t reply, just pulled out of his arms and looked at him sadly. “Laurel, please, I don’t want you to go,” he begged. Oliver tried to reach for her but his arm was weighted down— _ someone was holding him down _ .

He lurched forward and the beach and Laurel were gone. Instead, he found himself half-risen from the medical table in the base, and his hand had closed around Barry Allen’s throat.

Someone was pulling him off of the kid, and there were voices saying his name. Digg and Felicity were trying to explain what was happening, but all he could focus on was the person—the relative  _ stranger _ —who was standing there in his base staring at him unmasked without Oliver’s permission.

Felicity in particular didn’t seem to understand his alarm. “How is this any different from when your mother shot you, and you came to me for help?”

“Your mom shot you?” The forensic scientist blurted. They both ignored him.

“Or when you brought Digg down here when he was poisoned with curare? Or when you told Thea?”

“That is  _ absolutely _ not the same thing!” He couldn’t seem to work himself down from shouting. “With you and Digg, the difference is I did my homework on both of you! I don’t just tell people easily.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Barry interjected. “And you don’t have to thank me, but you should thank her instead of being kind of a jerk.” The younger man remained surprisingly resolute under his glare, only slightly backing off with a tacked-on “Mr. Queen.”

His phone buzzing interrupted the confrontation before it could re-escalate, and Oliver didn’t know whether or not to be grateful for his mother’s text; it was too late to take back the scientist knowing, and he was seemingly alone in his displeasure over that fact.

After brief instructions on how to proceed with their search for the man who’d left him for dead in that bunker, he left all three of them in the base, slamming both its door and his car’s before speeding out into traffic.

“I understand you’re upset and still a little disoriented, but that was maybe not the most diplomatic way to go about making your point,” said Laurel in the passenger seat.

Oliver slammed on the brakes. The car behind him laid on the horn.

The woman who had not been beside him until perhaps a second ago brushed her hair back from where it’d fallen over her face with the sudden stop. “Careful,” she chided.

“Laurel, what— _ how _ did you—” His mouth hung open as he stared at her, totally uncomprehending.

She blinked back at him. “Isn’t this what you said you wanted? Not to go?”

Several cars behind him were honking now. With a scowl, he pressed on the gas again, though about only half of his attention was truly on the road. “I’m hallucinating you? But I’m not still dying.” Unless he hadn’t woken up at all and Barry Allen knowing his identity without his say-so was just a nightmare of some kind Laurel was here to rescue him from.

“Why don’t you like him? Barry,” she clarified.

He shot a look at her. “He lied about what he was doing here—”

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “But it’s not like the others haven’t already pointed out that would be a bit hypocritical to hold against him.” He opened his mouth, but Laurel wasn’t done. Oliver had a sinking feeling he was about to lose an argument to a hallucination. “He’s not connected with whoever is making the Mirakuru, he saved your life, and he wants to help you find whoever just tried to kill you last night.”

“He’s practically a stranger.”

Laurel gave him a look. “You had Digg run a background check on him yesterday. You probably know more about his past than he does about yours. Unless he’s into reading tabloids,” she added with a smirk.

“I’m not being irrational,” he insisted.

“Of course you’re not, Ollie.” He hadn’t expected her to agree; no one else usually did. “It’s not as if you’ve been given a lot of reason to trust people in the last six years.”

“I’m starting to wonder if I can trust my own mind,” he muttered, turning onto the drive up to the house. He got out of the car but faltered in his steps when there was no accompanying sound of the passenger door opening or closing. He looked back; Laurel was gone. Oliver stood there a moment, a confusing jumble of emotions—she was gone, but she was never really  _ there _ —before he managed to reign it all in and go inside.

It turned out the issue his mother was having was Thea’s locked door, but it fortunately only took him one try for his sister to answer it. They exchanged a look before Thea deliberately explained what they both knew he was already aware of.

Roy was still clearly struggling back from the effects of the knockout gas, which was good. The more it slowed him down, the better. It was the best non-injurious solution he’d been able to come up with after Thea had frantically pulled him aside at the party the previous night.

“You should try to sleep if off for the rest of today,” he advised the younger man. Oliver left the room to inform his mother everything was fine—only was that her up ahead?

“Mom? Hello!” He called, but when he rounded the corner he stopped in his tracks.

“Shado?” She stood in the middle of the hall, remarkably incongruous and yet exactly as he remembered her in the clothes she’d had to wear for days on end on the island. “You’re here, too.”

“I had to see you. Had to warn you,” she explained.

“Warn me?” He echoed.

“You can't fight what's coming. Put down your bow. Take off my father's hood.”

Oliver couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and not because he knew she wasn’t actually real. “I wear that hood to honor your father. And to honor you.”

“If you want to honor me, stop fighting...and live.” The smile slowly faded from her face as she told him, “Or everyone you love will die.”

“Ollie?” At the sound of his sister’s voice he turned around. “Who were you talking to?”

“I, uh—” a brief glance over his shoulder confirmed that Shado had seemingly disappeared as well, and he scrambled for some kind of answer. “Digg, on the phone.”

Thea accepted that easily enough, but took another few steps towards him.

“Ollie, what’s going on? You never told me why you had to knock out Roy,” she cast a nervous glance over her shoulder as she muttered it, as if worried her boyfriend was lurking out of sight. “And he seems to think that you—or the Arrow—know what really happened to Max. Do you?”

His first thought was to say no, do anything he could to keep Thea as far away from the Mirakuru as possible. Only that wasn’t the kind of brother he was trying to be anymore.

Like a manifestation of his conscience or some kind of guardian, Laurel was there as suddenly as the time before, standing just behind and to the left of Thea. She looked away from his sister and met his eyes, giving an encouraging nod.

Oliver swallowed heavily, then finally answered. “I don’t know how, but he came into contact with something I encountered on the island. It’s dangerous and most times deadly, so Thea, Roy needs to stay away from this. Diggle, Felicity, and I are following a lead, and hopefully we’ll have it taken care of soon.”

Thea processed that new information, then squared her shoulders determinedly. “Okay, I’ll try and keep him out of trouble.”

“Good,” he said. A quick glance confirmed Laurel was smiling now in approval.

“Are you okay?”

Oliver blinked. “What?”

“It’s just, you look kind of uneasy,” Thea told him.

“I’ll be fine,” Oliver replied. “Look, I need to get back to the others, alright?”

This was getting ridiculously out of hand. Oliver really was no stranger to hallucinations, but he couldn’t function like this, constantly having conversations with or seeing people who weren’t there. An explanation was needed, and there was probably only one person who could give it to him.

Oliver returned to the base and made directly for Barry. Of course, the scientist wanted to know the extent of his symptoms and what he was seeing. Oliver hesitated, then decided just how much he wanted to reveal.

“A woman named Shado who was with me on the island.”

“Shado. Sara,” Felicity listed in a rather deliberate way. “How many women were you marooned with? Are you sure this wasn’t Fantasy Island?”

Oliver’s lips pressed into a thin line before he was able to fully tamp down any reaction. The others were quiet in the awkward pause of his nonresponse.

At least, to them it was probably quiet.

“Oh, so suddenly because there were women it’s Fantasy Island?” Laurel was back, and with her temper, too. “Wait till she hears about Tiana! She does realize you were tortured, right?  _ Sara _ was tortured. And Shado—”

Oliver sucked in a breath and turned away. He didn’t need the reminder of what happened to Shado. Her own earlier appearance had been more than enough to bring it to the fore of his mind.

“Oliver?” Felicity blanched and moved to step forward, but he held up a hand, halting her.

“So you, you did train in a jungle or forest environment, hence the green,” Barry spoke up, clearly trying to keep the conversation moving, which a part of him couldn’t help but be grateful for even if he didn’t feel much like answering. The scientist seemed to take that as annoyance, however, as he quickly moved them over to a lab station to get to work diagnosing Oliver.

He kept up a steady stream of chatter all the while, though he’d switched topics to masks of all things. “Not to tell you how to do your vigilante...ing, but the grease paint thing? It's a poor identity concealer.”

“He’s got a point,” Laurel was considering. “That’s why you never look at people when you talk to them, right? Doesn’t your hood decrease your visibility?” She was standing just to the side of the forensic scientist now, almost uncomfortably close, and that more than anything was what was stopping Oliver from believing her to be real. No one could just ignore Laurel Lance like that.

She looked to him with a smile, and, for a second, he was terrified he’d said that out loud in front of the others. But, he realized, if she was all his own hallucination, she could probably read his thoughts. Or he was sending them to her. Whatever.

“A mask would decrease my visibility more,” he explained. “Unless it could conform to my face.”

“Wait, are you—were you saying that to me?” Barry questioned.

Oliver tore his gaze away from Laurel. “Yeah, of course.”

“Okay, because you weren’t exactly looking at me, so I couldn’t tell if—”

“Who else would I be looking at?” He snapped.

Barry Allen wisely chose not to supply the very obvious answer Oliver was sure they were all thinking. He had only just admitted to seeing people who weren’t really there.

“Well, uh, if you  _ were _ asking me, then I would tell you to look into a compressible microfabric. It could be great!”

The younger man was practically beaming up at him in excitement at just the idea. He didn’t think he’d ever met someone with such unbridled enthusiasm. His automatic impulse was to meet it with his usual stoicism, but…his eyes briefly flitted to Laurel, who gave another of those encouraging looks.

“Thank you, Barry,” Oliver chose to quietly acknowledge. The scientist leaned back, eyeing him in clear shock. Already, he was recovering with an easy grin.

“Well, it’s just an idea. I’d have to play around with the material to see how well it’d really work, but yeah! No problem.”

“I found Cyrus Gold,” Felicity piped up, and like that they were onto the next problem: finding out more about this person who seemed intent on resurrecting one of the most dangerous substances Oliver had ever encountered in his time away.

John seemed to think him not well enough to be out in the field, as he volunteered himself for reconnaissance. And Oliver couldn’t quite disagree with him, especially while they didn’t know just what might still be in his system. He insisted on waiting in the car for his friend as backup, though.

“If you get bored, I keep a book of crossword puzzles in the glove box,” Digg quipped as he got out near the motel Felicity had pinpointed as Gold’s likely hideout.

“That's not funny.”

“It was a little bit.” Laurel was there of course, poking her head between the seats and watching John go. “He could get caught if he keeps going out there without a disguise. You should ask Barry to make two masks.”

“I don’t think he wants that,” Oliver told her, even if he personally agreed.

“ _ What was that _ ?” asked Digg over to comm.

“Nothing,” Oliver responded quickly while shooting Laurel a look.

She grinned unapologetically back at him. “Oops.”

He placed a hand over his communicator. “What exactly has you so…cheerful?” Aside from her earlier outburst at Felicity’s remark about Shado and Sara, she’d been wildly out of sync with his own sour mood.

“You,” she told him simply, then elaborated, “because this is what you want, isn’t it, Ollie?”

Of course. Laurel safe and happy—and preferably with him—was all he wanted. And now his mind was fabricating it for him in front of his very eyes. Oliver closed them and refocused his attention on John and the mission.

But scarcely before his friend had had a look around the place did they discover Cyrus Gold was actually home, and they barely managed to escape without John ending up similarly invalided as he was. It was clear their team was outmatched. They needed manpower, and Oliver thought he knew a way to get it.

He had Felicity set up a meeting with Lance. The former detective only put up a minor resistance to the idea of following the lead Oliver presented him with—the other man had probably been puzzling over the theories Barry had presented at Queen Consolidated’s warehouse for the last two days and no doubt wanted answers. Looking at his thin, shadowed form across the rooftop, Oliver privately thought a case was just what the detective needed.

Of course, Lance wanted to know just why the Arrow was turning to him for help. And, like some sort of omen, the reason appeared standing several feet behind the older man. Only to Oliver’s dread, it was not Laurel or even Shado’s visage that met his eyes.

“ _ I've been compromised. _ ”

“What does that mean?”

“ _It means I'd be a liability._ ” Oliver swallowed and tore his gaze from Slade Wilson’s dark countenance. “ _You have to take my word on this, Detective. Gather as many men as you can, and do not hesitate to kill Cyrus Gold. Because if given the opportunity, he'll do the same to you._ ”

Sitting back and waiting for news from a police raid was not something Oliver was used to. This was the first night in a long while he hadn’t suited up for the action himself, and, even if he wasn’t going out there, it didn’t stop his body producing the adrenaline and nervous energy he usually channeled into his nightly patrols. He spent the better half of the evening pacing his bedroom, knowing that if he even tried to speak with his family they would be able to see his agitation.

“John told you to sleep,” Laurel reminded, sprawled across his bed. Oliver swallowed thickly and turned away.

“We both know that’s not happening.”

“Because you’re not tired or because you don’t want to?”

Training would be better for clearing his head, he abruptly decided. Oliver didn’t bother with telling anyone at the house he was leaving, and hopefully when he reached the base he wouldn’t encounter anyone else either.

His luck ran out there, however, as Felicity and Barry were both present. The two of them were easy enough to send on their way—he knew Barry was still a little wary of angering him, after all.

“The analysis on your blood is almost done running,” the scientist did tell him on the way out, and Oliver managed to thank him once more. It admittedly wasn’t hard now that he’d put himself in the habit. Perhaps when Barry and Felicity returned he could try his hand at actually being friendly, which Laurel seemed to think was a good idea, but for now he was still too anxious to hear back about the raid on Gold. He shut the monitor and its coverage of the upcoming particle accelerator activation off, needing the quiet.

But he didn’t have long to appreciate it. Slade Wilson apparently wasn’t satisfied troubling Oliver with simply the sight of him.

“This is a nice place,” the man remarked, strolling from one side to the other with an ease as if he’d been invited. “It's a bit more comfortable than the fuselage on the island.”

“You're not real.”

“Neither are you. You told everyone when you started this crusade that it was about making up for your father's sins. That was a lie,” Slade accused, snapping the arrow he held in half and letting it fall. “This charade is to atone for your sins.”

“You're dead.”

“You are not a hero. Or a friend. Or a brother. You are  _ nothing _ .” Oliver couldn’t listen to this. He looked away. “Do not turn your back on me, not again.”

“You're  _ gone _ .”

“Wherever I am...it's time you joined me.” That was all the warning he got before Slade attacked, and it was an attack, hallucination or not. Oliver was sent staggering forward, whirling around for his own counter. Slade dodged and struck him again.

“They say a coward dies a thousand deaths. But even that wouldn't be enough for you.”

“I tried to save you!” His voice faltered as he added, “And her.”

Slade pointed an unyielding finger at him in reply. “But you couldn't. Just like you couldn't save this city.”

They grappled, but Slade was stronger; he always had been.

He was thrown onto a table, hard enough to wind him. Instruments and equipment fell with him to the floor with a crash, including—“No!”

His fingers just brushed the lid of Laurel’s laptop, unable to catch it in time. With a surge of panic Oliver pushed himself onto hands and knees, Slade forgotten. He picked up the machine as gently as possible, turning it over for signs of damage. “No, no, no.”

“Ollie. Ollie, it’s okay.” Laurel was crouched at his side now, and he knew relief was not the best response to an ongoing hallucination, but he couldn’t help the wave of it that crashed over him. Oliver reached for her, and Laurel held him. Held him together.

“Felicity’s pulled information off of computers more damaged than this,” she reminded soothingly. “She already started backing up the files. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

The thundering of his heart gradually slowed in her embrace, and he slowly raised his head, looking around the room with wide eyes. His grip on reality was tenuous at best, and yet the sight of the damage he alone must have caused sent a shock through him.

“What’s wrong with me?”

Laurel just continued to hold him; she didn’t have an answer.

Eventually, he was able to rise to his feet a little shakily and step back, placing the laptop with reverent care onto the table. The base was a mess, and there was no telling when the others would return. He didn’t like the idea of explaining what had happened, even if he knew it was unavoidable. Still, he could mitigate the damage somewhat if he cleaned up now.

Laurel moved out of his way—and was that her shoes crunching on the glass or his?—hopping up onto the free space next to her laptop and crossing her legs at the ankles as she watched him fetch a broom.

He waved the dustpan. “I don’t suppose I could ask you to hold this?”

She shook her head. “You know that’s not how this works. Why don’t you call someone? John, Thea—”

“No,” he disagreed. Oliver didn’t need Digg thinking he was cracking up entirely, and Thea did not need to know anything about  _ any _ of this; it would worry her far too much, and he wasn’t willing to risk the relationship they were still rebuilding by scaring her. He set the dustpan aside for now and focused on sweeping the detritus on the floor into a pile.

“So how does this work?” He asked, keeping his tone conversational. “Did you tap Slade in the last time you left? Give him a heads up for when I’d be alone?”

“It’s not your hallucinations that are in control, Oliver. Not if you don’t let them.”

“Considering how you seem perfectly fine with coming and going, I think it’s safe to say I am letting them,” he retorted. But fine, if he really was in control…he stopped what he was doing, walking over to Laurel where she continued to sit and watch him. “Don’t leave me again.”

Her head tilted to the side, considering him. “Who left who?”

His head bowed. “I didn’t think that you needed me…the way I need you. You’ve always been so much stronger, Laurel. I— _ we _ —took that for granted, I know. But I can’t keep doing this without you. I never want to be on an island again.”

Her hands framed his face, forcing him to look up into her green eyes. “No more going back, Ollie. You have to keep moving forward.”

“With you, it has to be with you,” he insisted.

But the foundry door opened above them. He wanted to reach up, place his hand over one of Laurel’s to hold her there—only she wasn’t really, was she?

“Oliver?” Felicity was hurrying down the stairs, taking in the evidence of his fight with himself. Barry was right on her heels, eyes just as wide.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” he hedged, uncomfortable with the horror on their faces. He knew this shouldn’t be happening, that there really was something  _ wrong _ with him, but it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. Not until they knew what was causing it and how to fix it anyway. “Felicity—” She looked up from her phone, probably halfway to dialing John. “I need you to check this over.” He pointed to Laurel’s laptop. “It—fell.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman eyed him in clear doubt for a moment but moved to do as he’d asked, Barry following.

“Laurel’s,” he heard the IT expert mutter in explanation to the scientist. Oliver turned away, nearly crossed his arms over his chest defensively but instead forced himself to take up the broom and finish cleaning up.

He’d gathered it all in the pile he wanted just as someone approached him, but it definitely wasn’t Laurel’s footsteps—she seemed content to swing her legs and watch Felicity run diagnostics on her laptop, something that might have made him smile in a different situation. Instead, he pinned Barry Allen with a look just as the man was about to open his mouth.

“Uh—” the scientist struggled to recover for a moment. “Did you, uh, need someone to hold the dustpan?”

“Sure,” Oliver agreed after a pause. The younger man crouched down, keeping his eyes on the floor as Oliver swept. He could still practically see the thoughts whirring about in the forensic assistant’s head.

Oliver sighed. “What is it?”

Barry gave a guilty start. “Oh! Nothing. I mean, I know it’s none of my business but it’s just—have you thought about looking into accomplices? Five thousand dollars is a lot of money, but if she’s been using it on hotels or even motels she’d be running out after six months. There’s gotta be someone she’s staying with.” Oliver’s eyes tracked back over to the woman—or the image of her—in question, but all she did was meet his gaze with not a hint of a reaction to the scientist’s suggestion.

“Someone who’s staying with?” It was John who asked as he descended from the upper entrance. The army man frowned as he took in the state of the base, and Oliver saw his hand twitch reflexively towards his gun. “What happened here?”

“Oh my god.” Felicity spun around in her chair, staring at him with wide eyes. “Oliver, it’s Lance. His team went after Gold and—he’s been hospitalized.”

Oliver didn’t let anyone else accompany him to the hospital, not even for the journey. He already had the only kind of company he would want on a trip like this, though his hallucination was completely silent just the same as he was. As the Arrow, he watched through the window, waiting for the right moment when Lance was left alone, then he slipped inside.

Seeing the man lying there, weakened and broken, weighed him down with guilt. He’d failed his promise to Sara to keep her family safe, and while she wasn’t around to hold him accountable. Laurel didn’t seem interested in doing so in her sister’s place; instead she merely left his side and sat in the chair by her father’s bed, a comfort that went completely unnoticed by the other man.

He had to struggle to find his voice. “ _ How are you, Detective? _ ”

“I'm alive,” was Lance’s answer. “Unlike most everyone else in my unit.”

Oliver’s gaze found his shoes. “ _ I'm sorry about your partner. _ ”

“I took him in there.”

“ _ Because of me. _ ”

“I hate to disappoint you, but not every death in this city is on you,” Lance told him. His daughter smiled, looking up at Oliver with teary eyes echoing the same kind sentiment. It was almost too much. “I got this off Gold. Hopefully you can do something with it.” The injured man opened his palm to reveal a key, which he took. “I didn't believe it at first, but this guy, I mean, it's like he's not human.”

“ _ He's human. _ ”

“Well, then you can kill him. For Hilton. And me.”

He couldn’t stay any longer; there were footsteps coming down the corridor. Oliver left the same way he entered, though he waited just out of sight as the door to Lance’s room opened to reveal a young officer.

“Daily,” the man croaked from his bed. “Well thank God you’re alright at least.”

Knowing Lance was in safe hands, Oliver finally took his leave. He’d barely covered more than a block’s distance before he realized that it wasn’t just the injured man he’d left behind. Laurel was gone again, as if she had elected to stay watching over her father. It was the first he’d truly felt alone since he’d nearly died, and it wasn’t what Oliver wanted at all. He didn’t feel in control; he hadn’t felt in control since he’d come home to find the real Laurel missing.

When he returned to the others, however, it was to even worse news. According to Barry, there was nothing in his system. Whatever was happening to him was all of his own doing.

John tried to reassure him, even opening up just slightly about his own experience coming home from Afghanistan and the ghosts he himself had seen. It helped, if however slightly, though he wasn’t sure how he felt about the other man’s use of the term “survivor’s guilt”. He hadn’t survived Laurel. He couldn’t have.

Giving voice to that fear, however, was not nearly as easy as thinking it.

“There’s someone I’m seeing more than the others,” he forced out. “Not someone I survived, and not just when I’m alone or for a second over someone’s shoulder.”

John gave him a long, searching look, but when Oliver didn’t supply any more information he finally said, “Then I guess she really needs to be heard.”

Oliver held his gaze for a moment before dropping it to the floor. John just always seemed to know.

“Oliver.” Felicity looked hesitant, yet continued, “I scanned the key Lance gave you and traced its serial code back to the manufacturer. This particular key fits a locked gate somewhere on Crescent Circle in the Glades.”

As soon as he stood up she began to protest, though he didn’t know why. Once he had the information he needed he was going to go, it was just what he did. He had to keep moving forward, even if it was hopeless.

At Crescent Circle, he at last discovered the missing centrifuge and everything else Gold had stolen to make himself the Mirakuru. Only it was clear by the sheer size of the apparatus it wasn’t just meant for him.

“ _ Brother Cyrus told me he killed you _ .” Oliver turned sharply. A man in a skull mask voice a voice distorted beyond any hope of recognition stood by what were presumably the controls. So Gold wasn’t working alone; perhaps he wasn’t even the mastermind.

“ _Guess he's not as strong as you'd hoped. Where'd you get the Mirakuru?_ ” He demanded, stalking forward. “ _Who gave you the formula?”_

“ _ It was a gift. A gift I would use to save this city from itself _ .”

Gold came to his boss’ defense, and he was still just as strong as all the previous times. Oliver fought his hardest, but when he was thrown to the ground he found he just didn’t have it in him. He couldn’t win this.

“Get up, Oliver.”

That voice winded him more than the fall. “Tommy?”

Tommy crouched in front of him, eyes hard and unrelenting. “You're not going to die down here.”

He was barely paying attention at all to what the other man was saying. There was so much Oliver needed to say. “Tommy, I'm sorry. I let you die. I let Laurel—”

His friend shook his head. “You didn't let me die, Ollie. You fought to save me. Because that's what you do. What you have  _ always _ done. You fight to survive. I know I called you a murderer, but you are not,” Tommy stated fiercely. Oliver was struggling to swallow past the lump in his throat. “You are a hero. You beat the island. You beat my father. So fight, Oliver. Get up and fight back.”

Tommy’s words gifted him the strength to rise to his feet just in time to meet Gold’s next attack. They carried him through the fight, which no longer seemed so unwinnable knowing he had his oldest friend’s support. That he hadn’t failed him.

He was gaining the upper hand, and Gold was not so lucky when he was thrown backwards into some of the equipment, causing a reaction. Oliver was forced to dive out of the way, and he spotted the man in the skull mask escaping out the exit, disappearing right before part of the machine he’d been using blew up. Oliver just made it out a window on the opposite side rather than pursue. His only lead was getting away, but at the least he was putting an end to this nightmare before it could begin…for now.

It was only John and Felicity waiting for him in the base when he returned. It seemed oddly quiet despite this being the norm.

“Still have a ghost problem?” Digg asked in greeting.

“No,” he answered, “I got the message. But we have other problems.” He explained to them what he’d found at Crescent Circle, the man in the skull mask and his plans. It was only as he finished with little comment or interruption from the two of them that he realized just  _ why _ the quiet still felt off to him. “Where’s Barry?”

No sooner had Felicity informed him of the scientist’s return home than her phone began ringing with a call from the man in question. He wondered if that was going to become a habit. Oliver also contemplated making his own phone call; Thea would be relieved to know he’d managed to put a stop to things for now before Roy could get involved.

But then Felicity was calling out to him, “Oh, Oliver, Barry says that box over there on the table is for you.”

He felt one of his eyebrows raise, but nevertheless collected his present. Inside was a mask, exactly as Barry had suggested, and Oliver had to wonder just how fast the man had had to work to get it done in time. He placed it on, then faced his friends.

“How do I look?”

“Like a hero,” Felicity told him earnestly.

“Like you with a mask,” Digg was not the one to answer, and for a moment his breath caught in his throat but then—the others’ lack of reaction—the realization hit. He’d assumed himself cured prematurely.

Laurel stood just the same as she had been since he’d woken from near-death, with her arms crossed and her weight resting against the side of the glass case that normally held his suit. Her eyes were wide, a sort of exaggerated innocence. “What? You’re a hero already.”

Oliver removed the mask. “I think I’ll get changed,” he announced to the others, but of course even once he left them behind in the other room, he still wasn’t alone. Hallucinations didn’t have to follow the laws of physics, he supposed, as Laurel was already standing just a few feet in front of him.

“So how come I can still see you?”

She affected a shrug. “You tell me.”

“I thought this was supposed to work the other way around,” he pointed out. “My ghosts have things they need to say to me.”

“Oliver, I am not a ghost. None of us were!” She yelled. “You’re not speaking to Shado, or Slade, or Tommy, or  _ me _ , we’re not real! The only thing that’s different about us is that we look and sound like each of those people, but we are all just in your head.”

“Right,” he agreed. “You’re the Laurel in my head.”

“I’m not Laurel,” said Laurel. She took a step closer with eyes imploring him to understand. “I’m a figment of your imagination. I might as well look just like you.”

Something heavy settled in his gut. Of course she wasn’t real, he’d known that, but had it been too much to even just  _ pretend _ it was her? “Then why don’t you?”

“Because you don’t listen to yourself?” She suggested, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. “You chose the messages you needed to hear from the people you most wanted to hear them from.”

“I needed to hear that I was nothing and a coward?” He questioned on a laugh that sounded more like a choke.

“Something in you thought you did. I think it was the self-loathing,” she told him in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Oh,” Oliver acknowledged with a nod.

Shado’s warnings, Tommy telling him he was a hero…those weren’t their words. They couldn’t be. They were dead. Who had he been kidding?

“Maybe it’s escaped your attention, but you’ve got a lot of it.”

“Mm-hm,” he acknowledged. “So what part of me are you?”

She shook her head. “See, that’s your trouble. You keep trying to fit everything into separate parts. Before the island, after the island, the Arrow, Oliver Queen—it’s all you. There’s not a part of you that’s good and a part of you that’s bad, you’re just  _ you _ . And Ollie…it’s not wrong to want the people in your life to be able to accept that.”

“I thought you— _ she _ —could. But it’s been two months since I’ve been home,” he found himself echoing the doubts of his team. “If she wanted to, if she could…she would’ve come back.”

“Didn’t you not want to come back?” She posed in lieu of an answer, trapping him with his own words just like the lawyer he remembered. “When John Constantine offered you a way off the island, when you stopped fighting the missions as much. Why did it become easier to stay away?”

Oliver swallowed, unable to meet her eyes even if it wasn’t really Laurel. He fixed his gaze on the wall just over her left shoulder. “I was…afraid.” There was no use pretending in front of an audience that truly consisted of no one but himself. “Ashamed. Of the things I’d done, of the mistakes I’d made. I didn’t see a way you—Laurel—could ever forgive me.”

“You’re not the only one who experiences doubt, Ollie. Or fear. Or the desire to want to hide away from the people whose opinions matter the most to you.”

“What if this is the only way I’m ever going to see Laurel again?”

“Is this really how you’d want it?” The sad smile she wore was all Laurel, even as she repeated, “I’m not her. I’m just the impression of Laurel you have in your head. I’m only as accurate as you are. And according to Thea, I’m already not up to date.” She picked a lock of deep brown hair off her shoulder and let it drop again. “Is that what you want for the rest of your life?”

“No,” he decided quietly. “But I don’t know how to find her.”

“You know  _ her _ .” The hallucination before him lifted a hand to cheek. “You know her better than anyone. You’ve got all the answers, Ollie…you just have to find the right question.”

“You can’t tell me what that is?” He asked, half-desperate.

“If I could, you wouldn’t need me to. And you don’t need me.” She drew her hand back, and Oliver had to resist the urge to grasp it with his own.

"I love you," she stated, plain and honest, before he could chase after her.

Oliver shut his eyes and had to will himself to remember, "You're not her. You're just a voice in my head saying things I want to hear."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But you should tell yourself that more often."

When he opened his eyes, he was alone. Had been alone this whole time. Laurel hadn't really been with him for months, and every minute he wasted could have been spent on righting that wrong.

What he needed was a fresh perspective, some way of looking at this as if he hadn’t been staring at it for the last two months. Some new theory.

_ Have you thought about looking into accomplices?  _ Barry Allen’s words came to him again. No, he hadn’t really paid the idea much thought. He’d spoken to everyone of importance, Lance, Thea, Joanna,  _ Sara _ even, there was no one else in the city who might have some connection to Laurel, some reason to help her and keep secrets from her own father…

Except there was someone  _ out _ of the city, wasn’t there? Laurel had told him herself all those months ago,  _ my mom, she showed up in town this week. _ Mrs. Lance, who had known Sara was going on the boat with him and didn’t say a word; Mrs. Lance, who had sounded shaken when her ex-husband last spoke to her; Mrs. Lance, who at this very moment was being lied to about her other daughter’s own whereabouts by that same ex-husband.

Was it possible she might know something? A long shot, perhaps. But was it  _ impossible _ ? No. Not until he made certain for himself.

He’d no doubt missed the last train for the night, but an early one tomorrow could get him there by late afternoon. Oliver had no idea what Laurel’s mother’s particular feelings were on him at the moment—if they were anything like Lance’s it might be best to show up looking a bit more official.

With that in mind, he reentered the main room of the base. “Everything okay?” John was looking at him rather closely, and he realized he’d probably been much longer than usual.

“Yeah,” he waved off his friend’s concern. “I was just thinking. Actually, Felicity, would you mind calling Barry back? I might be making a trip to Central, and I’ll need help getting around once I’m there.”

He watched her eyebrows rise straight up to practically her hairline with each word. “Okay,” she said, drawing the word out. “Not that I’m the expert on these things, but I’m pretty sure Christmas is almost here, and that is usually a time people like to be home with their families.”

“I won’t be away that long.”

Digg approached him from the side, arms crossed. “What’s this about, Oliver?”

“Just a hunch,” he replied vaguely, his eyes on Felicity as she dialed and then waited with the phone up to her ear.

“And what’s this hunch about?” His friend persisted.

Oliver looked at him but couldn’t seem to find the words. The irrational side of him feared that voicing his thoughts would make them sound unfounded or ridiculous.

“Oh my God,” Felicity gasped once again, somehow worse than the first time. Oliver turned; she wasn’t looking at them or her phone, but rather at one of her screens displaying the news.

‘Explosion in Central City’, the banner read. ‘Particle Accelerator Malfunctions, Mass Chaos’.

Oliver’s stomach dropped. For the first time, when it came to a lead on Laurel, he hoped to God he was wrong.

\---

She watched the rain lashing the awning and suppressed a heavy sigh. It didn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon; in fact, the storm just seemed to be growing stronger. As it pounded the pavement it sprayed up to her ankles, and, admittedly, a shiver was starting to grow despite the unseasonably warm December they were having.

Just as relentless was the traffic, and she checked her phone again with a small frown. Waiting for her mom to get here would be hopeless, a thought which a year ago would have been met with no surprise from her. But a lot could change in a year, as she well knew. She felt like the living, breathing embodiment of that.

The cars were bumper to bumper as far down the street as she could tell, headlights gleaming and horns blaring, probably because of all the detours they put up for that STAR Laboratories event. The police didn’t want vehicles in the area that weren’t their own because of all the protests. She’d read up on it as best she could when she’d had the time, and if half the risks they cited were a real potential, she didn’t see what the laboratory was doing testing this in the middle of an urban area. The correlation between this machine and earthquake increases alone…it reminded her of things she’d rather not think about.

Of course, if it made her so uncomfortable, she realized there was an obvious solution; go home, and not back to her mother’s. But she couldn’t, not now, and not like this. Even picturing her dad’s face at the sight of her—and yet she missed him. She missed everyone. Equally, however, she was terrified.

She checked her wallet. Enough to get a cab. She didn’t like to use her mom’s money where she could help it, already guilty enough at staying in her home for no charge. It was strange, actually feeling like her daughter again.

With that in mind, she took out her phone again and dialed one of the two contacts that was in it.

“Honey, I’m trying to get there but between the rain and the traffic I’ve only just managed to leave the university campus—the students are putting on their own demonstration.”

“Sounds like a circus,” she remarked. “It’s okay, mom, I’m just going to get a taxi. You should head home. It sounds like it’s going to take a while.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll see you at home.”

“Alright. Be careful. I love you.”

She’d finally managed to get to the point where her eyes didn’t mist over whenever her mother said that. “Love you, too.” With a smile, she ended the call.

She pushed herself onto swollen and slightly drenched feet, hesitating a moment before leaving the relative safety of the post office awning. She’d remained inside up until it had closed what felt like hours ago. Now, as the rain pelted against her face and her coat, she wished she’d picked a different day to run errands. But she’d been set on making sure her package got there in time for Christmas, even if the decision to send it was still tying her stomach in knots.

She took one hand out of her pockets to push sopping blonde hair back from her forehead, searching the streets for the yellow of a cab. There had to be somebody looking for a fare. The wind was continuing to pick up and she could hear increasing rumbles of thunder.

Or…was that thunder? She turned, looking back towards STAR Laboratories—and every light in every building, every street lamp and traffic light suddenly blinked out. The brakes of nearly every car screeched, but she barely heard it as a  _ boom  _ and a light that was hard to look at directly exploded up above the city skyline.

“Oh my God.” It was happening all over again,  _ disaster _ , and there was no time, no time to do anything, to help anyone, to help herself, to help her  _ baby _ —

Laurel threw both arms protectively around her middle as a wave of energy rushed out over the city, knocking her to the ground and out cold.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yes. I realize this fic has been in over a year-long hiatus, but as you might be able to tell from my tumblr blog, I’ve worked up the spoons to care enough about these characters (okay mostly just Laurel) again. Very, very sorry for the unforgivably long wait, but if you’ve been hoping for a continuation then I am hoping you enjoy!

_ Six months ago _

Laurel eased herself onto the barstool, tempted to kick her shoes off in order to rub at her aching feet. Eight to ten hours a day standing inside a cramped tent was killer for the arches.

As usual, it was Joanna who didn’t have any reservations voicing what was on her mind. “Please God, tell me this is almost over.”

“If I have to tell one more family we lost their papers in the quake…” Laurel couldn’t even muster the energy to finish that sentence, but it didn’t need to be. The other woman shook her head in commiseration anyway.

“Hey, come on, we didn’t come out to talk about all that,” Luis interrupted from her left. He passed them each a glass. “We came to forget it.”

Joanna raised hers with a “Here, here.”

Laurel gave their coworker a nod of thanks before taking a long pull of her drink and grimacing as it went down. “You know, I had to tell the Kims that I couldn’t find their deposition in our files—”

“So much for not talking about it,” Joanna teased.

“ _ But _ ,” she carried on, “it turns out the whole block of buildings their landlord owned went down in the quake. You couldn’t sue him for anything now.”

“And that’s why they say karma’s a bitch.”

She considered this, staring into her glass as she revealed, “Now twelve more families have lost their homes and two are dead.”

“Laurel.” Joanna laid a hand over hers resting on the bar top. “I know this is hard. Most days I can barely drag myself to work in the morning. But there’s nothing more we can do.”

“I know.”

“Have you been looking for a new position? We’ve all got to start thinking about the future, you know.”

“The future,” she echoed hollowly. What was the point? After five years of pushing herself forward case by case, client by client, she’d finally felt herself starting to come alive again. Now it was all gone—and Oliver vanished with it—leaving her worse off than she’d been before. Sara, Tommy, how much more was she just going to end up losing in the future?

“I’ve applied at Wethersby & Stone,” her friend blurted. She looked up in surprise at the sudden announcement. “Corporate, I know.”

“No, no, that’s good,” Laurel hastened to reassure. Joanna was being practical; she had herself and her mother to think about, especially after losing her brother. “I hope you get it. I know you’ll get it.” She lifted her glass decidedly, and with a grateful smile Joanna mirrored her.

But she couldn’t hide the disgusted face she pulled after her second taste of her beverage. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Laurel looked at it more closely. Maybe she just was feeling something stronger, but that didn’t explain why this drink should put her off so badly. “You know what? It must not be my night.”

“Oh, come on, Laurel.” 

Luis and Anastasia both looked over with vague curiosity and disappointment as she slipped off her stool and stepped away from the bar. “You’re not leaving already, are you?”

“I’m just not feeling up to it.” She shrugged. “And I promised my mom I’d call her later.” It was a lie, but the two of them had been talking more as of late. It wasn’t perfect, but after five years of nothing Laurel was willing to take what she could get.

Maybe that was her problem.

Joanna didn’t exactly look thrilled, but she nodded her understanding. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t stay out too late,” she instructed them all, getting various reactions from too-innocent grins to rolled eyes.

Despite what she considered responsible actions, the next morning Laurel woke feeling about as worse off as if she really had stayed at the bar and long past closing time. How could she possibly be hungover?

Sitting up proved disastrous as her stomach roiled unexpectedly. She tried waiting the nausea out but was soon staggering to her feet and into her bathroom. Kneeling in front of the toilet was not the first thing she’d wanted to do this morning, yet even worse was that nothing seemed to be  _ happening _ . Her stomach was still protesting, it just didn’t seem to be enough to provoke a reaction. Laurel didn’t relish the idea of throwing up, but it would at least allow her to feel better afterward. She’d prefer to just get it over with already.

Instead, Laurel was forced to sit with her knees tucked underneath her and her forehead pressed against the cool tile as her stomach gradually calmed itself. By the time she felt settled enough to risk getting back up, she’d lost half an hour and felt nowhere near ready to start the day. Slowly she shuffled back into the bedroom and took her phone off the nightstand.

“You didn’t need to check on me, you know,” was Joanna’s amused greeting after the second ring. “I’m leaving in fifteen.”

“Actually, I think I might not be able to make it in,” Laurel said with reluctance. “I’ve got some kind of stomach thing. Really queasy.”

“Oh no! Think it was something you ate?”

“I…don’t know.” She tried to think back to the last full meal she’d had. What was in her fridge?

“Well you better be getting back in bed,” Joanna advised. “I could stop by, maybe bring you some soup.”

“No, you guys are going to be swamped without me,” she dismissed. “It’ll probably just go away on its own.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I’ll come in—”

“No, you’ll  _ stay _ in all day, Laurel,” her friend countered, leaving no room for argument. “There is no point dragging yourself to work and making yourself sicker. Just take the day off and hopefully you’ll be feeling better tomorrow, okay?”

“Alright, alright,” she grinned in spite of herself. “But call me—”

“I won’t. Get well soon!” With that, the other woman hung up. Laurel rolled her eyes.

Well, if she couldn’t go into work today, she could still be productive. Laurel wrapped herself up in her bathrobe and relocated to the front room, powering up her laptop. She’d been falling behind in organizing her notes due to the bare-bones operation they were currently winding down, but a day off was just what she needed to get back on track. She flipped one of her legal pads to where she’d last been working off of and started transcribing her notes from page to screen. Client’s name, records they had or hadn’t been able to recover, and status of their case. It took her well into the morning, which just went to show how much she’d been putting it off.

A couple hours after that she decided her stomach had remained settled enough to try for some water and crackers. That was if she could locate any of the latter in her depressingly bare cupboard. Near the back she finally found a box—Tommy’s favorite brand. He must have picked them up the last time he’d made a trip to the store before he’d moved out... 

Laurel took one out of the packaging and nibbled on the corner. The cracker was stale. With a shaky breath she dropped first it and then the box in the trash, the thump of it hitting the bottom loud and somehow final in the otherwise quiet of her apartment. 

Laurel returned to her desk and grabbed a post-it note. A grocery list was definitely in order. New crackers, canned soup, maybe some ginger ale. Did she want to pick up anything for after this bug passed? She had no idea if she’d have the time or inclination to try making anything complicated. Still, Laurel jotted down a couple types of vegetables and pasta. She could definitely handle pasta.

That was her kitchen’s future planned. What about  _ her _ future? She considered Joanna’s advice. CNRI was closing permanently, all too soon, and she needed to make a decision. She knew that.

Laurel eyed the email from Adam Donner sitting in her inbox. Truthfully she’d been surprised when the ADA had reached out to her. But that offer wasn’t going to last forever. It was time to stop sitting on it. She took out her phone.

“Assistant District Attorney Adam Donner speaking,” the man answered after a couple rings.

“Mr. Donner, this is Laurel Lance. I received your email earlier this week.”

“Oh! Yes, I’ve been hoping to hear from you. It’s my understanding that with CNRI’s future uncertain at the moment you might be looking for a new position. The DA’s office is looking for someone right now, and your qualifications make you an ideal candidate if you’re at all interested.”

“CNRI’s future is not uncertain. If we had any doors left to close, we’d be closing them soon. So I would be very happy to sit down for an interview with you.” She hoped the lack of a smile on her face wasn’t bleeding into her tone.

“Excellent. Let me just pull up my schedule so we can find somewhere to fit you in.”

They agreed on a time later next week, which Laurel wrote down before quickly making her excuses to get off the phone. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Donner, or even the prospect of working at the DA’s office. But moving on from CNRI just felt very...final. Like closing the door on a part of her life. It wasn’t a practice she was unfamiliar with, but it was just getting harder and harder to keep doing it. What was the point of moving forward if she had to leave everything and everyone she cared about behind?

If Joanna found out she spent the day being maudlin she’d be upset, so Laurel resolved that was enough work and self-reflection for one day. She closed her laptop and curled up on her couch, flipping through the channels on the television until she found a movie she could watch somewhat mindlessly. The only thing she could want for now was some ice cream—but that was a thought best not to dwell on either, so she dismissed it.

By the time she was yawning and heading to an early bed, Laurel felt she would certainly be rested and well enough to return to work tomorrow.

Which of course was why the next morning found her in the same exact position she’d been in twenty-four hours before, crouching over the toilet and willing herself to just get it over with already. This just didn’t make any sense. She barely had anything in her stomach at this point, so what could be making her sick?

Another call to Joanna meant another day off work. Laurel staggered back into the bathroom after she’d gotten off the phone and opened her medicine cabinet. There had to be something in here that would help her get over this bug. But she didn’t have much aside from aspirin.

She was running low on tampons, too. She’d meant to grab some last month, but what with hosting Taylor and then everything surrounding the earthquake—Laurel stilled.

Her cycle...she’d missed her period. Somehow in all the chaos it had slipped her mind, but she’d missed it. How had she  _ missed _ that she’d missed it?

Her gaze landed on the tile in front of the toilet where she’d been crouched only this morning, feeling sick...Laurel gripped the edge of the sink and met her own panicked gaze in the mirror.

“No,” she murmured. “No, no, that’s not possible.” She’d been careful with Tommy, knowing how many other partners he must’ve had. She’d always made sure—

Except the one time she hadn’t. Except the one time Oliver had shown up at her door and there had barely been time to  _ breathe _ let alone think, when the sense of  _ right _ had outweighed everything that had gone wrong in their lives up to that moment.

Didn’t they always say that just once was enough? But she couldn’t know for sure, Laurel reminded herself as she passed a shaky hand through her hair. Not yet.

On trembling legs she stumbled back into her room, pulling on the first clothes she grabbed from the closet and nearly stepping into two different shoes on her way out the door. She spared a harried wave for the doorman before slipping into the flow of foot traffic outside the building.

Laurel kept her head down as she entered a convenience store several blocks away that she’d never been to in her life. It was quiet and seemingly empty of other patrons, yet her heart was pounding loudly enough to her that she wondered if it could be heard. She felt both hyper aware and yet removed from the situation, like she was watching a film from the uncomfortably close point of view of some other woman. Her whole body was tensed in anticipation of rounding a corner and bumping into a familiar face. How would she explain herself? It was for a friend? Just a precaution? None of their business?

She finally found the right aisle, looking to either side—coast clear—before stepping up to the section displaying various kinds of tests. Laurel worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she scanned the labels and instructions. Her attention was split, ears straining for the chime of the door signifying another customer. Finally she grabbed a test that seemed cheap enough and easy to use off one of the shelves and walked with it tucked under her arm to hide the label on her way to the register.

“Good morning,” the cashier greeted.

“Morning,” Laurel echoed, forcing what she hoped was a regular smile on her face as she placed the test on the counter. Of course, the other woman’s eyes immediately dropped to it, then darted first up to her face and strangely back down again...to where her left hand hung at her side.

Laurel felt her cheeks begin to heat up slightly as her bare fingers curled up into her palm before hastily stuffing her whole fist in her pocket. Not that it served much good now.

The cashier made no comment, simply scanning the box—which of course was when it occurred to Laurel she didn’t remember how much money was in her wallet. Using her credit card would be as good as handing over her name. A brief but frantic search managed to produce a twenty and a few smaller bills, and she barely suppressed the sigh of relief.

The door chiming shot her nerves to hell all over again, however, and Laurel resisted the urge to turn and look like some kind of idiot. By the sounds of it, at least two people had entered. Young, possibly teenagers, maybe even Thea’s age—God,  _ Thea _ .

“Would you like a double bag?” The cashier asked with what felt to her like a knowing look, and Laurel didn’t manage to keep from starting guiltily.

“Yes, please,” she responded in an undertone. The teens were already making their way up to the register.

“Receipt?”

“No thank you.” They could be right behind her now. Had they seen? Did they know?

But when she turned around with the bag clutched tightly in her right hand, the pair were busy browsing magazines. There wasn’t anything for her to be fearful or ashamed of. She made her way calmly towards the door.

“Well, hope you get the result you want,” the cashier called to her. The teenagers paused in their conversation. She could imagine them looking up, curious and confused. Mortified, Laurel ducked her head back down and left without a backwards glance.

She had to fight herself not to simply run the entire way back or to constantly check that the double bags were not still somehow see-through. Nobody out here on the streets could possibly know what she currently held. They had no idea, and they never would. Nobody needed to know except her, and only just to check. Then she could throw it away, bury it deep in the trash—assuming the result was negative, that was.

And if it wasn’t?

Laurel was breathing heavily by the time she shut first the apartment and then her bedroom door behind herself. The door to the bathroom still stood open, the light on. She’d forgotten to switch it off on her way out. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to re-enter it, not yet. A part of her couldn’t believe what she planned to do, that it could even be necessary. A scare like this, it wasn’t supposed to be her.

She took the box out again, turning it over in her fingers. There was no use continuing to stare at it, she knew. Maybe this wasn’t the answer, maybe she really was sick and needed to see a doctor and was just wasting time. Whatever the result was, opening this box and taking the test would make it real. Was she ready for it?

It wasn’t as if she’d ever been ready for any other development in her life. Laurel pushed off the door she’d been leaning against and took the test with her into the bathroom.

It was the longest several minutes of her life, pacing across the small, cramped space, her heart continuing to hammer away. What was it going to say? What  _ was _ she hoping for, what result did she want? Her mind chased itself around in circles until she couldn’t stand it and finally snatched the test up from where she’d laid it on the sink to wait.

Two lines.

The test slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor.  _ Positive _ . It was positive.  _ She  _ was positive. She was pregnant.

Laurel sat hard on the lip of the bathtub. There seemed to be no other prevailing emotion than shock. She was  _ pregnant _ . One of her hands came up to rest on the smooth expanse of her stomach. It didn’t feel as though anything was there, and yet the proof rested not two feet away from her that there  _ was _ something in there. The beginning of a  _ someone _ .

“Oh God.” Her mind, normally racing trying to keep track of her work, her family and friends, was drawing a distressing blank. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, and wasn’t that so typical? For all she tried to be careful, to plan ahead, she could never resist the temptation to just throw all caution to the wind. Now it had landed her in bigger trouble than ever.

Though not just her. It took two, after all.

_ Oliver _ . Her head dropped into her hands. As if the mess of their relationship could get any worse. How could she possibly come to him with this? Going by his current behavior they’d be lucky to get him back in  _ ten _ years if he heard this kind of news.

He’d left her. That should probably tell her what his possible desire to be involved in something like this should be, but...a part of her, that part that could never quite give up on Oliver Jonas Queen no matter how many people told her she was crazy for it, reminded her he didn’t have the full story. He couldn’t know that right now she was pregnant. That right now  _ they  _ were pregnant. If she was going to tell anyone right away, she wanted it to be him.

She needed to see him, speak to him at least. This changed everything. His leaving, her guilt for Tommy’s sacrifice. Things that had seemed insurmountable only a day ago felt like excuses rather than reasons to remain apart. 

The only person she knew who might possibly be able to reach him was Thea. Laurel rose to her feet and found herself retracing her steps out of the apartment moments later. There really wasn’t any time to lose with this hanging over her.

She sent a text ahead and by the time she reached the lobby had gotten a reply back asking her to meet at the Verdant. She’d had no idea the place was staying open without Oliver to run it. In fact she hadn’t been back there since before the earthquake.

Laurel took a route that wouldn’t lead her past where Joanna and the others would be set up for the day, and by the time she arrived at the club the sun was nearly right overhead. Her stomach was grumbling, too, and she touched it again before moving her hand quickly away. How obvious could she be? Shaking her head, Laurel took a moment to compose herself before entering the building.

“Hey.”

Thea looked up from the stack of papers she was studying, her face breaking into a smile. “Hey!”

“Looks like you’re just about ready to reopen for business,” Laurel remarked with a glance around the place. A few employees were scattered about seemingly rearranging seating and the like, Roy Harper among them she noticed.

“Yeah, well, I figured it beat sitting around at home,” the younger girl told her, and Laurel nodded. She could relate to that need to keep moving, to throw herself into something and ignore her own problems. “Not to mention there’s no telling if my trust fund let alone my parents’ company will still be standing in a year.”

“Very smart.”

If she wasn’t mistaken, Thea preened slightly at the compliment. For how quickly she was being forced to grow up by her family’s actions, she was still so young. “Thanks. So, what brings you around?”

“I needed to ask you something,” she hedged. “It’s about Ollie, actually.” That was all she could trust herself to say. A part of her marvelled that Thea could have no idea what was happening right now, the same as her only hours ago. “I was wondering when he was planning to come home.”

“How should I know?”

Laurel’s hopeful smile faded. “You mean he hasn’t been in touch?”

Thea snorted. “He left me a note saying he went on a ski trip in Europe. Didn’t even ask if I wanted to get the hell out of here, too.”

Laurel hesitated a moment before asking, “Would you have wanted to?”

Thea shrugged. “It’s not like I’m exactly popular right now. But I got the club.”

“Just the club?” 

Laurel bit back a smile as she turned to see Roy look up from polishing one of the tables.

Thea made a face at him. “You’re an employee of the club. And my boyfriend.”

“Thanks, boss,” Roy remarked dryly.

Thea was rolling her eyes as she shooed him further out of earshot before returning her attention to Laurel. “You want a drink? It’s on the house,” she offered, already reaching for a glass.

“No!” Laurel winced at the sharpness in her tone. “No I—I can’t.” She was  _ pregnant _ , had been for at least a month...and she’d been drinking up to now, hadn’t she?

The younger woman didn’t seem too fazed. “Okay. Listen, I have no idea if he’s reading them, but I’ve been sending anything I want to say to his email. That’s your best bet. I’ll let you know if I hear from him, but right now I’m as in the dark about what Ollie’s up to as you are. Figures I just got used to him being back right before he disappears again,” she muttered to the bartop.

“I’m sure he’ll be home soon, Thea,” she attempted to assure her, though as distracted with worry as she was she didn’t know how sincere it came across. How much had she had to drink since she could have gotten pregnant? More than usual, if she was being honest with herself. What if it had affected the baby? What if there was something wrong? “I have to go. Good luck with the opening.”

“Thanks.”

The doorman seemed bemused as she passed him for the fourth time that day, and Laurel wasn’t sure if her attempt at a smile held up at all. She was too busy considering what she wanted to say. How did she break this kind of news over an email?

Or should she? Laurel wasn’t sure if it was fear or selfishness that had her wanting to make sure she could tell Oliver in person. She wanted to be able to see his reaction, know what he thought,  _ talk _ to him about this like they should. 

It took a few attempts, deletions, and rewordings, but she ended up with:

_ Ollie, _

_ Thea told me you’re taking some time to yourself after everything that’s happened. I guess you needed the space. Maybe we all do. _

_ But things have changed. I found something out and I have to talk to you about it. I know you feel like you can’t be in Starling right now, but this is important. I can’t do this without you. _

_ Please write back when you can. _

_ Love always, _

_ Laurel _

She held her breath as she hit send and stared at the little box that popped up saying her message had been delivered. Laurel wondered what time it was over in whatever ski lodge Oliver was staying in, when she might hear back. She didn’t know how long she could wait on this before needing to speak with someone.

She took her phone and dialled the number that would always come first in her mind, her thumb hovering over the call button.

But...could she tell her dad? He’d always dreaded something like this happening. Why would he be happy? He’d more likely be the opposite. He’d be furious at Oliver, there was no question of that. And her? She was an unmarried woman who’d been dating another man until shortly before getting pregnant by her ex.

Shame. Fear. Humiliation. Those were the reactions he would have. She could picture the ‘I told you so’ falling from his lips as clear as if he was standing in front of her, could see his hunched form at the bar grumbling into his drink epithets about Queen and his own gold-digger daughter. Laurel squeezed her eyes shut, willing the images away, and the phone slipped from her fingers.

She shouldn’t bother him anyway, she tried to tell herself. Her father was already dealing with so much, what with his demotion. God, this kind of blow to his reputation, it’d probably shatter what little respect he had left at the precinct.

What about  _ her _ reputation?

She wasn’t exactly an unknown in the media thanks to the high-profile businessmen she’d gone after for her clients. Her various tangles with both the Queen family and the Hood didn’t help either. Was she the kind of person who would end up in a tabloid over a scandal like this? She didn’t want that for herself or a baby.

As selfish as it was, getting the hell out of here sounded like a great plan at the moment. At least until she’d figured out what she was doing. If Oliver replied by the end of the day, she’d need money to go and meet him wherever he’d holed up halfway around the world. If he didn’t...well, then she’d definitely need money.

The bank was about to close, so she’d have to go tomorrow or the next day. How much was she safe in taking out? She’d need money for plane tickets, food, shelter, possibly a visit to a doctor or some kind of women’s clinic. Bitterly, she recalled that with Rebecca Merlyn’s clinic closed, there wasn’t any such place she could go in Starling anyway. The nearest Planned Parenthood was at least a city over, so she’d need to be going out of town for a few days at least regardless.

Laurel found herself refreshing her inbox constantly over the rest of the day and the next, though it brought her nothing but the odd bit of junk mail. Oliver either hadn’t read her email or didn’t want to respond. She didn’t know which was worse.

But there was a way she could make sure which it was. She opened up a new message and typed the equivalent of an SOS:

_ Please Ollie, I’m running out of time. _

If he could read that and not answer, he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was at all.

Say Oliver didn’t respond. Say he never responded. How long was she willing to wait? How long  _ could _ she wait to make a decision?

The reasons against keeping it were distressingly numerous. She was on her own. She didn’t have any prospects for future employment as a pregnant woman. She couldn’t know when or what kind of support Oliver would be willing to give—not that her pride would ever let her accept his money. She wasn’t even sure if she could  _ be _ a good mother, with or without the means.

But after everything in her life that she’d had taken away from her...would she be able to survive losing something like this?

Laurel rolled onto her side, wrapping her arms around herself.

Thea had said she wasn’t popular in Starling these days. Laurel doubted anyone related to the Queens would be. People were angry, and whether or not it was justified didn’t seem to matter. They’d hate her baby.

Was it even safe to keep it, if that’s the sort of life it would have? The life it would have in Starling, anyway. Laurel had never thought of leaving the city permanently. It had been her home, her one constant when everything and everyone else in her life left her. How could she even think of going?

But this couldn’t just be about her and her wants or needs anymore. Maybe she couldn’t save a city. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to fight an army like Joanna had tried to warn her. But there was one person now whose life rested literally in her hands and her hands alone. She had to protect it.

Laurel pushed herself up to sitting, looking around the darkened room. “I can’t stay here.”

She was at the bank first thing the next morning, having barely slept the night before. Laurel scanned the available tellers, hoping she’d come on the right day...there!

She approached one teller in particular. “Mr. Ricci!”

“Ah, Miss Lance! Good morning!” 

She had gotten to know the balding man quite well during the proceedings she’d guided his son through to prove him innocent of an armed robbery. If anyone at Starling National would be willing to do her a favor, it was him, and that was precisely what Laurel had been counting on.

“So good to see you!” The man was saying. “Now, what can I do for you today?”

“I wanted to make a withdrawal.”

“Of course. For how much?”

“Five thousand dollars?” She couldn’t help the slight uptick in her voice at the end.

The man’s eyes went wide. “That is quite a sum. I’m not sure…”

Laurel knew she had to think fast. “I’m treating myself to a bit of a vacation, and I want to take out the money so I budget myself. That’s all I’m letting myself spend.”

He nodded, clearly mulling it over. “Lots of people are trying to get away these days. But if anyone deserves a vacation, it is you. Alright, come with me, and we will get it all taken care of.”

Laurel did not have to fake her gratitude at all. “Thank you so much, Mr. Ricci.”

She stayed long enough chatting at the bank so as not to seem suspicious. It wouldn’t be good if it looked like she was about to make a run for it.

Once finally home, Laurel checked her email again. Nothing. Oliver wasn’t there.

If she stayed any longer, sooner or later she would have to face either Joanna or her father. Whether she went into work or took another sick day, they’d know something was wrong. If she didn’t want to involve anyone else, she had to be on a train out of the city by tonight.

A bizarre sort of calm seemed to settle over her — or perhaps she was just teetering on the edge of a complete breakdown — but Laurel took out her scarcely-used suitcase and began pulling things out of her closet. Comfortable, baggier clothes were prioritized; she’d have no need for dresses or pantsuits while hiding out to have a baby, and eventually she wouldn’t be able to fit them anyway. Toiletries were placed in a smaller case before being tucked away as well, and looking around the bathroom reminded her to get rid of her trash and the pregnancy test. She was sure her father would case her apartment all on his own if he had to, once he realized she was gone.

Laurel paused at her desk, pulling a notepad towards her. Should she leave him a message not to worry? Explain that she had to go away for a while? It’d probably only make him worry more and be that much more determined to find her. And it wasn’t as though she could give him a proper explanation or one that would make him happy with her. Better to leave him with what little good opinion he might have left of her.

She checked the time and knew she needed to get moving. With her phone wedged between her ear and shoulder, she placed a call down to the lobby.

“Hi, Mr. Powell, it’s Laurel. Would you mind calling a cab for me? I’m a little behind on packing.”

“Of course. When should it arrive?”

“Twenty minutes would be perfect. Thank you so much.”

She forced her suitcase closed and leaned heavily on it as she zipped it back up. Laurel left her phone on her bedside table and went to her front door. She turned back for one last look at the home she’d made for herself over many long, trying years. It seemed hard to believe she was about to leave it behind. But it was the only way.

Down in the lobby, Mr. Powell was waiting. “I can help you with that,” the doorman offered, taking a hold of her suitcase to stow in the trunk of the cab pulled up to the curb.

“Thank you.” She just barely bit back a goodbye. Instead, Laurel slid into the passenger seat.

“Where to?”

“The train station, please.”

Moments later, they were driving off and she watched as her apartment disappeared in the side view mirror.

“Going on vacation?” Her driver asked.

Laurel felt a wan smile lift the corners of her mouth. “Something like that.”

_ Four months ago _

Laurel paced the scant floor space between the bed and the wall, her mind chasing itself around in similar circles.

She was running low on cash. Not enough for it to be an emergency yet, but even cheap motels like this one she was staying in started to add up night after night.

The minute she went to withdraw more funds she was sure her father would be on her trail. If he still had his detective’s badge she doubted she’d have made it this long without him finding her. And if he found her like this...it just wasn’t thinkable.

Laurel placed a hand over her stomach, which was decidedly firmer than it had been months ago before all this. Before she’d hatched a crazy plan to run away with a baby she didn’t even have enough money to get another checkup for let alone take care of once it was born.

She couldn’t do this on her own, but she had no one. By keeping an eye on any Starling news she could tell Oliver was still God knew where. Her father had enough of his own troubles, if he’d even want to help her after all the worry she must have caused him. Thea was much too young for her to depend on for this. She had nothing else that resembled family.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Her mother was just a short train ride away in Central, after all.

Of all people, was she really considering going to her  _ mother _ ? Maybe things were better between them than they had been, but nearly five years of no contact was a lot to forget.

But what other options did she have?

Laurel checked out of the motel that morning and headed for the nearest train station. She purchased another ticket in cash, this time to Central, and waited to board.

The entire journey she was a nervous wreck, thinking up all the many ways this could and would go wrong. It took everything in her to actually leave the Central City train station and not simply hop a second train out of there. From there she splurged a little on a taxi cab as she only had an address and no way of knowing how to get to her mother’s house just on the edge of the suburbs. Laurel paid the driver and got out, pulling her suitcase along behind her as she came up the walk for the very first time. 

It was a one-level building, small without seeming too cramped. There was a tree in the yard and a couple different kinds of flowers that had mostly wilted, though they couldn’t hold her interest for long.

She drew in a deep breath, her hand resting just inches from the door. Could she really do this? She didn’t have many options, true, but what would her mother say? What if she refused to help her?

There was no way of knowing until it happened. She rapped on the door and then planted her feet firmly on the doorstep. The wait wasn’t very long, and soon enough she was once again face to face with her mother.

The older woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of her. “Laurel!”

She tried not to cringe as she offered a, “Hi, Mom.”

The next thing she knew, Laurel was being pulled over the threshold and into the older woman’s arms. It was so unfamiliar a sensation to her that she couldn’t help standing there stiffly for a moment before remembering to move her arms to reciprocate.

“Oh, thank goodness!” She felt lips against her cheek and then her mom was taking great gasps of air as she held her tightly. “Oh, Laurel!”

She found herself being pulled even further inside and led into a living room. Her mother’s home for the last six years, and she was just seeing it for the first time. There was a picture of both her and Sara on one of the end tables next to the couch her mom guided her to sit on. Laurel wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Does Quentin know you’re safe?”

Her gaze dropped to the rug.“He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“What? Why haven’t you told him?” Her mom reached into her pocket. “Did you need a phone? Let me call him—”

“No! No, mom, please don’t call him,” she begged.

“He’s been worried sick, honey,” her mother told her, and something twisted painfully in Laurel’s gut. “Your father loves you.”

“He won’t- he won’t love me if he finds out,” she managed around the lump rising in her throat. “He’ll hate me. If he doesn’t already—when he drinks he says things, he blames me for Sara getting on the boat, and then he says he didn’t mean it, but he would this time. He already thinks I’m a—you don’t know what it’s been like, you  _ left _ .”

“Alright, alright, I’m not calling.” Her mother placed the phone down and instead knelt in front of her. “Tell me what’s happened. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Laurel shook her head, wiping furiously at the tears that continued to spill over. This wasn’t really the plan. But her mother was here and  _ listening _ , actually listening to her. And it had been so long since she could truly talk to someone she knew.

A tremulous smile rose to her face. “I’m pregnant.”

Her mother’s eyes went wide before darting to her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, which was normal or so the scant reading material she’d been able to get her hands on said.

“Oh,  _ Laurel _ .”

Her smile fell just as quickly as it had come. “I know.”

“I can’t imagine, and with Tommy—”

A choked sob left Laurel, and she shook her head as her eyes squeezed shut in shame. “It’s not Tommy’s.”

“Then who—? Oh, honey.” For the second time that night, her mom reached out and hugged her. Laurel held on tight this time, needing the comfort, needing the release.

“I know. I know it looks bad. We’d broken up, and then Oliver told me he still loved me, and I- I just didn’t  _ think _ .” She sniffed loudly and swiped at her nose. “God, mom, I’m sorry.”

“No,  _ I’m _ sorry.” 

Laurel froze, and her mother pulled back slowly, her hands trailing down Laurel’s shoulders to rest on her arms.

“I know I haven’t been a very good mother to you — or a mother at all.” Her mom looked down, not seeming able to meet her gaze. “You should have felt able to come to your father or I the minute you found out, and if you didn’t I only have myself to blame.” She looked up again, and Laurel was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “I was so consumed with grief from losing Sara that I didn’t realize I was losing you, too. And I don’t know how I can make that up to you.”

Laurel found it nearly impossible to speak around the lump in her throat. “That’s okay, mom. It’s okay.”

“Tell me what you need. Whatever you need.”

She was rapidly becoming overwhelmed. “I- I was just hoping to stay for a week, maybe two? I need to find somewhere to work or I’m gonna run out of money, and I—”

Her mother shook her head. “You’ll stay here, but for as long as you need. Let me do what I should have been doing for you. You take care of the baby.” She rose up to place a kiss on the top of Laurel’s forehead. “I’ll look after the rest.”

Somehow, despite everything that had happened in her life so far, this was the moment she really felt she was dreaming.

_ Two months ago _

Laurel had fallen into something of a routine. Wake up, eat with her mother, head out for a walk around the neighborhood or do some exercises at home while her mom left to teach. Even if her stomach was slowly beginning to grow didn’t mean she had to totally let herself go, and it wasn’t as though she had much else to do apart from the occasional check up on the baby. Then she read up on the news in both Central and Starling or picked up one of the paperbacks lying around the house.

Probably the strangest adjustment was just how much time she and her mother spent together now. They got dinner or Laurel would attempt to fix something that would then need to be salvaged once her mom got home from the University, on weekends they watched movies, and rather than a partner it was her mom that accompanied her to the classes on breathing and other what-to-know-about-expecting-and-parenting techniques. It was...nice.

These days, sometimes Laurel had the night to herself if her mom was out on a date, though she had yet to meet the boyfriend. The first few weeks, her mother had come straight home from classes and always seemed relieved to find Laurel still there. She hadn’t brought up contacting her dad again yet either, which she suspected was out of fear that Laurel might run for it. She couldn’t really say whether or not it was warranted. 

It still felt unreal how well her mother had taken the news, and she didn’t know if she could hope for the same from her father. It didn’t stop the guilt from churning on the few occasions her parents talked, and her mother had to lie over the phone that she still hadn’t seen her. Yet still she relied on her mom’s silence.

Of course just when she’d gotten settled, everything changed again.

“Billionaire and son of the woman accused of conspiring to commit mass murder, Oliver Queen, has returned to his hometown and in just the nick of time. With Stellmoor International poised to buy the majority of shares in Queen Consolidated, the Queen heir will need to hope for another miracle not unlike his rescue from an island in the North China sea one year ago.”

“Will you tell him?” Her mom stood with her arms braced on the kitchen counter, eyes on the television.

“I don’t know.” It had been so long, she’d simply begun to assume none of them would ever hear from Oliver again. Now he was back and totally unaware of the plight she was in. Could she even hope he’d want to be involved at this stage?

He had a sense of duty to family, that was true. Laurel wasn’t sure if this counted. Did an accident borne out of a moment of passion warrant his concern? Did  _ Laurel _ ?

“Maybe I should let him get settled back in first?”

Her mother shrugged, leaving the choice up to her.

The next forty-eight hours saw an attack at Queen Consolidated, Thea kidnapped and saved by the Hood who made a surprise return, and Oliver only barely acquiring a co-ownership of his family’s company. And it only seemed to grow worse from there. Laurel watched in horror the next week as Alderman Sebastian Blood of the Glades whipped up an angry mob to swarm Oliver’s car, one member of the crowd smashing a window with a thrown brick.

“It’s just not safe, is it?” She asked her mother as she paced back and forth behind the couch. “And even if it was, Oliver’s just managed to hold onto the company, Mrs. Queen’s trial is coming up...their family doesn’t need a scandal like this.” Laurel glanced down at the bulge in her stomach her old Starling U hoodie wasn’t quite able to hide anymore. “And I couldn’t do that to the baby.”

“As much as I think he at least ought to know, I can’t help but agree. Anyone connected with the Queens right now seems to be in danger.” Her mother was frowning, but clearly resigned. “Keeping the baby safe is your first priority, Laurel. Maybe someday things will calm down, but...Oliver will have to understand.”

Laurel spent the next week restless and unhappy. Decided as she was, now more than ever she missed her home and the people there. In an ideal world, she could be picking out baby names with Oliver, mediating lunch with her dad, getting Thea’s advice on how to decorate a nursery...but ideal was the last way to describe her world.

Maybe it could be worth it. She’d been in danger plenty of times over the last year and always come out of it. Maybe if she let herself try, it could work.

Of course, one evening the news served a cruel reminder of just how unsafe Starling currently was.

“Serial killer Barton Mathis, also called the Dollmaker, broke his usual pattern tonight by abducting Officer Quentin Lance. Lance was responsible for Mathis’ incarceration just five years ago, and police are considering this an act of revenge.”

“Oh, Quentin.” Her mother was watching with a hand over her mouth and wide eyes.

“I should be there. God, mom, what have I been  _ doing _ ?” All this time, letting her fear over her father’s reaction keep her from spending time with him. What if that time had run out? What if she’d never get to tell him, never get to make things right?

She nearly had her suitcase half-packed when her mother cried out from the main room, “Laurel! Laurel, they’re saying he’s been found!”

She dropped the shirt she’d been folding and rushed back in front of the television. Early reports were indicating some involvement from the Hood, and she found herself once again unaccountably grateful for his existence, whoever he was.

“Are they saying what condition dad’s in?”

“Not yet.”

She had to know. With trembling fingers, she took out the phone her mother had gotten her when she’d started staying here.

“Laurel?” Her mother asked.

“Oliver will know if dad’s okay,” she said quietly, more to herself than anything. “I can ask him, and then maybe- maybe we can talk. I...I don’t want something bad to happen to one of them without them knowing.”

She’d entered the last digit and now hit the call button, waiting with her breath held as it rang.

Just when she was thinking he wouldn’t pick up, he did. “Hello?”

Her mind went completely blank at the sound of his voice, and Laurel couldn’t think of what to say.

“Hello?” Oliver repeated, a bit more tersely this time. “Is anybody—”

He’d stopped, and she didn’t know why. She knew she should speak, but her voice still wouldn’t come.

And then Oliver said one word. “Laurel?”

Her breath hitched. How? How could he possibly know?

And yet on the other end of the line, Oliver only sounded more certain of himself as he tried again, “Laurel, please, if—”

She ripped the phone from her ear, mashing the end call button, just barely catching his cry of “—wait!”

“Honey?” Her mom was watching her with evident concern.

“I—I just—” It felt like her throat was closing up, and the phone fell from her fingers as she dropped her head into her hands.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Her mother said, sitting next to her on the couch and wrapping her arms around her.

“How do I even tell him, mom? How do I tell him  _ now _ ?”

Her mother held her through her tears over the absolute mess she’d made of things.

_ Two hours ago _

Laurel stood in line at the post office shifting her weight from foot to foot, and not only because they were tired of carrying her weight. Part of her still wanted to turn around and walk right out, but she’d made it this far.

The little box she held kept drawing her eyes, and she’d lost track of how many times she’d read the address she’d written on the side. The name on that address in particular.

_ Quentin Lance _

After many long, late night talks with her mother, she’d finally made the decision to reach out. The baby was due in just under two months, and while she still couldn’t work up the nerve to go back to Starling City herself, it was long past time for her to face up to her actions. At least to her father. It hadn’t been fair to keep this from him, no matter what he thought of her as a result. Whether he chose to shut her out of his life permanently was his choice, but at the least he would know she was okay. As okay as she could be, all things considered.

She stepped up to the next available counter. “Hi, how are you?”

“Fine, thank you. And you?” The post office worker rattled off in a bored tone.

“Fine, thanks. How much is it to make sure it arrives before Christmas?”

“Well, we’ve got rates for priority or expedited shipping, overnight—”

“I’ll take overnight,” Laurel decided. Now that she was here and really doing this it seemed silly to wait any longer. Either her dad would forgive her or he wouldn’t, but it was the holidays, and this was the best she could give him.

Her abruptness caused a blink from the woman behind the counter, and she actually seemed to look at Laurel properly for the first time.

“Alright, press that button on the screen,” the woman told her. She handed over the money next and waited for her change. 

“You have a good holiday.”

“Thanks, you too,” said Laurel.

“Is the little one coming before or after?”

She found herself smiling in spite of her nerves. “After. I’m still two months from my due date.”

“Well, you take care now. And good luck!”

Laurel left the counter and the package behind, not necessarily feeling any better about it but knowing it was out of her hands now. She’d just have to see what happened once her dad received it.

A man held the door open for her as she exited the post office, and Laurel thanked him before turning to find a bench just outside to sit on until her mom’s class let out that evening and she could pick her up. She didn’t mind waiting. It was plenty warm out for December.

As the time dragged on, however, storm clouds began to gather, causing the skies to darken even quicker than usual. She moved back inside for a time and made a stop in the restroom, but a glance at her watch showed she’d be forced out again soon enough.

“You got a ride home?”

Laurel jumped, but it was only the woman who had helped her at the counter. She was zipping up a raincoat and had an umbrella.

“Should be on its way,” Laurel answered.

“Alright, you have a good night then. Shame we’re getting rain like this instead of snow for the holidays.”

“Yeah.” Laurel watched the woman head out to her car, then exited the post office before one of the other workers felt they had to ask her to leave. The bench was still unoccupied so she reclaimed it and settled in to wait again and worry about the package and her father.

Even if it didn’t look or feel much like Christmas, she’d just have to hope for a miracle, because that was what it was going to take for this family of hers to come back together.

But it wasn’t a miracle that struck only an hour later.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the next chapter! A good bit shorter than the last one, I'm afraid, but this one didn't have the job of covering six months. At any rate, I hope you enjoy!

Eddie really could have picked a better week to start at his new precinct.

Rain continued to lash against his windshield, making it near impossible to see where he was driving with half the city’s lights still out. His siren did the job of getting everybody else out of the way as best as they could.

Their manpower was stretched to the limit as calls continued to flood in of accidents and emergencies resulting from the explosion. They’d been hit themselves, and Eddie had seen Allen loaded into an ambulance before heading out in his cruiser. Nobody had told West yet, as far as he knew, but there was backup on the way to his and Chyre’s location.

_ “Any units in the vicinity of 6th and Crossway?” _ Dispatch came over on the scanner which they’d only just got back up running when he’d left.

Eddie looked around for a street sign. It was a good thing he’d taken the initiative to tour through the city and look over some maps in his preparation for the move. “I might be close,” he announced.

_ “Caller says a woman’s collapsed on the sidewalk. Witnesses don’t want to move her. They think she’s pregnant.” _

“Ambulance on the way?” He took the next turn sharp and had to swerve this and that way around cars either abandoned or stuck on the road.

_ “Closest one could be half an hour.” _

“Okay, I found Crossway. I’m on it.”

Eddie pulled the cruiser up as close as he could to where several people were stood around on the sidewalk. Some of them turned as his door slammed.

“She’s waking up, officer,” a woman said.

Eddie hurried past them all. “Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

She was on the ground, blonde hair falling over her face and her arms still wrapped protectively around her middle. If Eddie had to guess, she looked to be around his age. Her eyes squeezed shut as a hiss of pain left her.

Eddie helped her to sit up slowly. “Try not to make any sudden movements. You had a fall.” He began checking her over, first for a concussion, but fortunately she didn’t look to have hit her head. “I’m Detective Thawne. Can you tell me your name?”

“What happened?” She asked instead. “There was this- this wave—”

“I know, but it’s alright now. I’m gonna want to take you to a hospital so they can check for any internal damage, but you seem—”

The woman gasped. “The baby.” She looked down “Oh my God, I think my water broke.”

“Oh my God,” said Eddie without thinking. She turned panicked eyes up at him. “I mean, uh, are you- are you feeling contractions?”

“I can’t be. This- this can’t be happening.”

Eddie felt perhaps the most out of his depth he’d ever been on the job. “Okay. Let’s just get you to the hospital, and they can confirm.” He slowly got her onto her feet and ushered her past the staring crowd back to his cruiser. Eddie grabbed a blanket out of the trunk and passed it to her before climbing into the driver’s seat and switching the siren back on.

They had marginally better luck with the traffic, and he kept pushing through any gap he could safely find. Every few seconds, his eyes jumped to the rearview mirror to check on her.

“This can’t be happening,” she kept repeating. Eddie started to worry she was going into some kind of shock.

“Everything’s going to be alright, ma’am—”

“Miss.”

“What?”

“I’m twenty-eight years old, I’m a single mom, and I am going into labor  _ two months early _ ,” his passenger listed off through clenched teeth. “It’s _. Miss. _ ”

Eddie gulped. “Yes, ma’am — er, miss. Sorry.” 

He pulled straight up to the emergency room, siren blaring, and left his cruiser parked there as he helped her inside.

“I need an obstetrician or somebody! She’s having a baby!”

Even with all the chaos, his dramatics got them into a room soon enough. He learned from a nurse’s questioning that the woman’s name was Laurel Lance and that she was only about seven months along.

“I can’t have the baby yet, can I?”

“At this stage, there’s a high chance of the baby being healthy. And since your water has broken, delaying labor has a risk of infection. The doctor will be here soon, and we can get started.”

“Oh my God,” Laurel Lance repeated. Her eyes screwed up in pain for a moment. He wavered on the balls of his feet, unsure what he should be doing.

The nurse turned to him. “Are you the father?”

“What?” Eddie rapidly shook his head, eyes wide. “No, no I am not. We just met. I’m a detective with the CCPD.”

“Well, Detective, if I can ask you to remain while I step out for a minute. Encourage her to breathe.”

“Uh, right.” Eddie watched helplessly as the nurse strode from the room, hopefully organizing equipment and personnel necessary to deliver a baby. He didn’t even know what all was necessary for delivering a baby.

He turned back to the expecting mother. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Could you call my mom?” She gestured to the pile of her clothes on a chair, which she’d had to trade for a hospital gown.

“Of course.” He fished out her phone and stepped out into the hallway.

There were only two contacts in her phone, both labeled as parents. Eddie couldn’t help frowning in a little worry, but hit the button for the mother nonetheless.

“Laurel? Is everything alright? All the streetlights went out, it’s an absolute zoo downtown.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Lance. This is Detective Eddie Thawne. I had to take your daughter to the hospital. She’s gone into an early labor.”

“Oh, God. Is it Central City General?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Are she and the baby—?”

“The doctors are optimistic. I can stay with her until you get here.”

“Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, detective.” Mrs. Lance hung up and Eddie checked in briefly via radio to let the precinct know his status. Then he marched back into the room.

“How’s the breathing going?”

“It’s good,” Laurel grunted. She looked up at him then, and a breathy laugh left her.

Eddie was feeling very confused now on top of the nerves. “Is there something funny?”

“No. Not really. You just do sort of look like him. The father.”

“Oh.”

“He should be here.” Laurel’s head fell back onto the pillow, a tear leaking from the corner of her eye and down the side of her face. “I’m so stupid.”

Eddie didn’t really know what to say to that. There was a lot about her situation that concerned him as a cop. Why the lack of contacts in her phone? Why had she been alone when the accelerator went off? And just where was the father of this baby?

He winced in sympathy as she gave another hiss of pain.

“I know it doesn’t fix anything, but I’m here. I can, I don’t know, hold your hand if that helps. Till your mom arrives?”

She blinked up at him for a moment. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Eddie.”

She smiled, though it wavered slightly. “Thanks, Eddie. I could use some help right now.”

Just as he took her hand, the nurse returned with a doctor.

“Miss Lance, we’re hoping to get started as soon as possible, but there may be a slight complication. The hospital is running low on pain relievers.”

“Oh great,” said Laurel. She may or may not have huffed out a laugh.

“We’ll do everything we can, but the volume of patients that have come in tonight is unprecedented.”

Laurel looked up at him. “I hope you don’t like your hand.”

“Your mother can tap in if you’re in danger of crushing it.”

He ended up getting very lucky, because Mrs. Lance showed up just before they were getting Laurel ready to start pushing. Eddie was ushered out into the hall with a hurried thanks, but that didn’t do much to block out the pained yells coming from the room.

She really did have a voice on her.

—-

“Quentin?”

He slowly blinked his eyes open to spot one of the nurses in his doorway. When had he dozed off?

“Your landlady stopped by to drop off a package that came for you,” she continued despite his lack of greeting. “Looks like someone thought you could do with a little holiday spirit.”

“No one’s sending me presents this year,” he stated. Because of him Hilt was gone, Sara was still on the run from that crazy cult that wanted her back, and Laurel…he fixed his gaze determinedly on the ceiling and waited out the familiar stinging at his eyes. Maybe there was a bright side to his being hospitalized over the holidays; without his daughter there was no one else to help him home from the bar. “Probably got the address wrong.”

“Well, I’ll leave it with you. You can open it whenever you feel up to it,” the nurse struggled cheerfully on. At the least she did just that and mercifully left him alone again. Quentin sighed, then with a bit of effort pushed himself up with one hand while grabbing for the small package with another. Settling back against the pillows he looked it over. Plain brown box, no return address. Could be considered suspicious.

Quentin couldn’t find it in himself to care. He tore the box open. Inside was another, smaller box gift wrapped in Christmas colors. With growing impatience he ripped open the paper and set the lid aside.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he grumbled upon seeing the phone sitting inside. What, had the Arrow decided he needed an upgrade for the New Year?

He powered it up, not surprised at all to find a contact pre-programmed in. It was even displaying a text already. But then he read the words.

_ Merry Christmas, Daddy. _

The phone slipped from his fingers to land in his lap.

It couldn’t be. After all these months, all this time, and nothing. Here, now, was the proof that his daughter was alive, was still out there?

That she wanted to speak to him?

Quentin picked up the phone again and made the call. The phone rang and rang and rang. He started to wonder if there had been a mistake, or this was some kind of joke someone was pulling on him. But then the line was picked up.

“Hello?”

His mouth fell open, and it was a struggle for him to respond. “Dinah?”

“Oh, Quentin,” she said. He thought he could hear her voice shaking. “Quentin, I’m so sorry.”

“Dinah, what is this? What’s going on?”

“I’ve wanted to tell you for some time. But you have to understand, I needed her to trust me, or she would’ve gone off on her own again and we would’ve lost her.”

“Dinah—”

“Laurel’s been staying with me.”

The air left his lungs in a great rush.

“About two months after she disappeared she showed up at my door. Quentin, I couldn’t turn her away, and I couldn’t make her come forward, not after everything I’d already done. And then things started getting so dangerous in Starling it didn’t seem a good idea at all to encourage her to go back. You have every right to be angry with me,” she added when he remained silent.

But did he? Did he have that right? If he wasn’t so exhausted he probably would have let loose with a thousand recriminations — how could Dinah think she had a right to hide Laurel from him when he was the parent that had been there with her all her life?

And yet he was hiding Sara just the same.

“Why didn’t she want to come home?” He heard himself ask instead. “Was she in trouble?  Was it something I did?”

“No, Quentin. She just didn’t want to disappoint you.” Dinah paused a moment longer, then said, “She was pregnant.”

He clutched the phone even tighter. “Was?” He asked, voice hoarse.

“She went into labor just a few hours ago.”

“She- she did?”

“It was early, Quentin. Laurel meant for you to get the phone in time to be here. If you wanted, that was.”

An early labor. Laurel herself had been just under a week early. He’d used to say that she hadn’t been able to wait to take on the world. He hadn’t said much of anything like that to her in a long while.

Then the rest of Dinah’s words caught up to him. “Of course I’d wanna be there. I’m her father.” He knew it was his own fault that hadn’t been enough to allow Laurel to feel safe telling him this. He’d told the Arrow as much. “I’m- I’m gonna be a grandfather.”

His breath had nearly failed him there. For a single moment, the pain both physical and emotional seemed to lift, and he could remember the good things about life again. Sara was alive. Laurel was safe. She was having a  _ baby _ .

“Yes, Quentin.” He could hear the smile in Dinah’s voice. “Laurel’s still in labor. It’s not too late. She would want you to be here.”

“I can’t.” It was a struggle to force the words out through a throat that was determined to close up. Frustrated tears leaked from his eyes. “I’m in the hospital. There was a raid, went bad.”

“I hadn’t heard. Are you alright?”

“I’m not so bad,” he dismissed. “But they won’t let me discharge myself, even for this. Damnit.”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

“No, I don’t want her to worry. Just say I’ll be there as soon as I can. I promise. You should get back in there, she shouldn’t be alone.”

“I only stepped out to take your call. There’s a detective from the Central City Police Department in there right now.”

He wanted to ask what a detective had needed to be there for in the first place, but the longer he delayed her the longer Laurel was without any family. “Get his badge number. I’ll have to let his Captain know he’s a good cop.”

“Of course. Take care, Quentin.”

“You too.”

He hung up, and all the quiet sounds of the hospital slowly filtered back in. Stuck in a hospital while Laurel was in another hospital 600 miles away. That just figured, didn’t it?

There was no telling when they’d release him. And all the while he’d be worrying; Laurel would tell Dinah not to give any bad news over the phone. If he could just send somebody to make sure she was okay...

There was only one person he knew he could call in on this.

Quentin fished around for his actual phone on the little bedside table. From there it took a bit of scrolling to find the number he wanted.

Hopefully the Queens wouldn’t mind a surprise for Christmas.

—-

Oliver barely spared his mother and Thea a hello once he returned to the manor. He instead continued straight onto his room and took out a bag which he started packing with clothes and other supplies. The first possible lead he’d had in weeks, and he was hoping it was wrong. But he couldn’t discount the idea that Laurel might be in Central, even if they’d just suffered a disaster the likes of which no one had ever seen before.

Thea pushed open his door without even knocking. “What’s going on? Thought we were doing Christmas.”

“Change of plans. I’ve maybe got a lead on Laurel, and I have to go out of town. Can you make something up to tell mom?”

Thea’s eyes had lit up, and she nodded several times. “Okay, yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

He’d only just finished zipping the bag closed when his sister came running back in.

“Ollie, mom says there’s a phone call for you. From Officer Lance.”

For a moment, he stood frozen. If Lance was calling, he had to have news. Whether it was good or bad…

The next thing he knew, he was taking the steps two at a time and grabbing the phone right out of his startled mother’s hands. “Officer Lance?”

“Queen. Listen, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I heard from Laurel. Well, her mother, actually.”

Her mother. His instinct had been right. Oliver had to fight down the panic that threatened to rise up.

“Is she alright?”

“Yeah, for the most part. Thing is, she...she’s having a baby.”

Oliver felt his heart stop for a single beat. His mouth had fallen open but he made no sound.

“I guess she thought I’d be ashamed of her. Maybe I would’ve, I don’t know. With Merlyn dead, the whole thing’s a mess.”

Tommy. Oliver did the math in his head and squeezed his eyes shut. No wonder Laurel had felt she had no one to turn to. Her cryptic emails suddenly made a perfect amount of sense.  _ I’m running out of time. _ Running out of time to decide what to do about the  _ baby _ .

His eyes squeezed shut, and he reached out for the banister, trying to ground himself. “But they’re okay?”

“As far as I know. I talked to Dinah, but I’m stuck in this hospital till they discharge me.”

Oliver winced. Lance was only hurt because of him, and now it was keeping him from his family. From his new grandchild.

“I wanted to ask if you could go down for me.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, well, you’ve changed a lot this last year or so. Told Laurel that, actually, one of the last things we talked about before the whole Undertaking business. And I know you care about her.”

“Of course.”

“Just let me know how she’s doing.”

“I will.” Oliver hung up. There wasn’t anything else that needed saying, not until he knew how Laurel was.

Laurel and the baby. A baby. Of all the reasons, he’d somehow never even guessed.

“Did they find Laurel?” It was his mother who asked.

“Yeah. But Lance needs me to go in his place. He’s in the hospital.” He turned an apologetic look on his family. “I have to go.”

His mom didn’t even look surprised. “Of course. Call us as soon as you can.”

“Thank you.” He hefted his bag back onto one shoulder and walked to the door.

“Wait, Ollie!” Thea rushed down the remaining steps. “What’s going on with Laurel?”

He didn’t stop. Oliver went straight to the garage and to his bike. Within minutes, he was speeding down the drive. It would be a long night and morning, but he was determined to get there as soon as possible.

The hospital was one of many places in Central that resembled a zoo in the immediate aftermath of the city’s particle accelerator explosion. As such, Oliver did his best to navigate the building via the signs posted every few feet while dodging around harried staff members and other visitors alike. Eventually he found his way to the maternity ward. Steeling himself with a deep breath, he began to walk down the ward scanning each room for a familiar face, the same face he’d been searching for the last two months.

But halfway down the ward was the nursery, and standing in front of the glass partition was a Lance indeed.

She looked away from the rows of infants at the sound of his approach, her eyes bright and warm. “Oliver,” she greeted, stepping forward to wrap him in a hug.

“Mrs.—”

“It’s Dinah, please. Thank you so much for coming. It’s such a shame Quentin couldn’t make it yet. How is he?”

“He’s supposed to make a full recovery,” he reported. “Is the- the baby…?”

“Second row, three from the left,” she told him quickly. Oliver dutifully followed her directions, getting his first look at the child of Dinah Laurel Lance. She was sleeping, her tiny balled up fists just poking out from her blanket, and a single tuft of hair, blonde in the light, was escaping from under the pink cap.

“Wow.”

“She’s just under two months premature,” Dinah was telling him, and Oliver worked to tear his eyes away from the tiny bundle in her cradle. “The doctors think the shock from whatever happened with that explosion induced an early labor, but they’ve reassured us she should be fine.”

“That’s good. That’s- that’s really…I’m glad to hear that. She looks healthy. She looks beautiful,” he said with earnest feeling. Any child of Laurel’s would be beautiful, he’d never doubted that, but to be seeing her here,  _ now _ …

He hadn’t anticipated this. The closest comparison he could draw upon was a memory nearly two decades old; his father’s hand had been laid on his shoulder as they’d walked up to his mother’s hospital bedside, and Oliver had taken a first peek at the infant nestled in her arms, the little sister he’d spent hours upon hours complaining to Tommy about prior to that very moment. Then Thea Dearden Queen had blinked her baby blue eyes up at him, and he’d fallen in love.

And somehow he was feeling that again. He didn’t understand it, it was simply  _ happening _ , a warm tide of feeling threatening to bubble up and overtake him at just the sight of that little baby. It didn’t seem to matter that he was here as an envoy for Quentin Lance, a stand-in for family. Maybe it was just that through all the years and ups and downs, the Lances  _ were _ family. And now this newborn life, she was part of it.

He exhaled a shaky breath and blinked to hold the moisture gathering in his eyes at bay. Dinah didn’t seem to mind the overly emotional response; perhaps she was glad to have someone here to share in her joy of becoming a grandmother. Oliver was finally able to dredge up a grin to match the kind smile playing at her lips.

“So, another Dinah, right?”

The older woman chuckled. “Yes. But her middle name this time.” She turned back towards the glass separating them from the infants. “Laurel was very sure. She named her Olivia.”

Oliver froze. The world narrowed down to this maternity ward in this hospital, him and Dinah Lance standing in front of the nursery with Laurel resting in a room down the hall, and absolutely nothing else. None of the rest of it mattered. His mind had gone completely blank save for the words  _ she named her Olivia _ over and over again.

“Olivia.” His voice didn’t sound his own, hoarse and light with something like  _ hope _ woven into it. The baby— _ Olivia _ —lay there in her crib, and he could not possibly take his eyes off of her— _ Olivia _ .

His math had been off by two months. Laurel’s daughter was named Olivia. She had been very sure. Sure enough to name her daughter after  _ him _ .

“Why don’t I give you a moment alone? I need to check on Laurel. She’ll want to know that you’re here.” He hadn’t even registered when the older woman had placed a gentle hand on his arm, but he felt the brief squeeze before she let go and only faintly heard her shoes against the tile signaling her retreat.

It was for the best; trying to split his attention right now between Laurel’s mother and her daughter required more effort than he was willing to spare. One of his hands had come up to the glass while the other he pressed to his mouth. He needed to feel grounded. This couldn’t be real.

Laurel’s daughter… _ his _ …?

Dinah had been happy to see him, had told him everything he could possibly need to know about the baby, had told him the name Laurel had  _ chosen _ for her. And Laurel would want to know he was here, would be…happy?

“Olivia,” he breathed again, just to hear it. The infant slept on with no change, but he couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her. He couldn’t imagine not standing here watching over this small, helpless child.  _ His _ child.

How could he not have realized the instant he laid eyes on her? How could he have ever thought otherwise? These last two months of searching, of worrying, of very nearly giving up hope, only to culminate in  _ this _ . A daughter. A miracle.

Oliver took a large gulp of breath before pressing his lips tight together, trying in vain to hold in the swell of emotion threatening to overtake him. All those years on the island and as a vigilante, teaching himself control, suppression, stoicism, none of it had prepared him for this.

And he was so glad. All the things he’d done, all the damage he’d endured, it hadn’t tainted this. Nothing could take this moment from him.

Oliver Queen stood in front of the nursery with shoulders shaking, eyes misting over and, for the first time he could remember, let go completely uncaring of who might be watching. He’d never known he could cry for feeling so full.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is it. The final chapter - but NOT the end of this AU and story. I will be drafting out a sequel, and I have most of the broader strokes of where the story's going laid out in my mind. Admittedly, I've gotten distracted with other Lauriver multi-chapter projects, so you might see some of those first before a continuation of this one. At any rate, thanks so much to everyone who stuck through for this story! I know the waits were far too long, and I lost some inspiration here and there along the way and had to fight my way back. Your patience and support means so much to me. At any rate, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

It didn’t quite feel real yet, that it was all over. Or that it was just beginning, really, with Olivia truly here.

Laurel had held her new baby daughter for as long as she’d been allowed before the doctors and nurses had whisked her away for checks and tests. She’d been so small and fragile-looking, but they’d all been surprised by the apparent strength in her lungs when she’d emerged screaming into the world. The pain of labor had lifted for a brief instant as Laurel had laughed at the sound.

Everyone was cautiously optimistic. Her daughter seemed in perfect health for being so premature, and she was happy to remain in the hospital as long as the doctors wanted to ensure that wasn’t merely a fluke. Laurel felt too tired to really go anywhere else, truthfully. All the plans she’d been tentatively forming of what she would do once the baby arrived, how she would make a life for them work, none of it was remotely ready just yet. And everything had changed now.

“Your father called. Twice now, actually,” her mother had told her shortly after the birth, probably to take Laurel’s mind off of waiting for news about Olivia.

It had worked. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth,” had been her mom’s simple answer. “He’s not angry, honey,” she’d added when Laurel had been too afraid to voice the question. “Just relieved to know you’re safe.”

“Is he- is he coming here?”

“Not right away. He was at the hospital—”

Laurel had felt her heart stop. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, it was just a checkup. He’s asked Oliver to come down in the meantime.”

“Oliver,” Laurel had echoed. What did that mean? How much did he know? Did he  _ want _ to know?

But he was on his way. That had to be good, didn’t it?

She’d occupied the hours waiting between spending time with Olivia and resting fitfully whenever she was advised to. There was just too much on her mind to really settle into any kind of sleep.

Her mom had come back in and left again only a few minutes ago after telling her Oliver had arrived. She’d said she would send him along and have them move Olivia back into the room.

So this was it. After so many months of hiding, of worrying and wondering. Laurel tried to remember what she’d meant to say to him back when she’d first found out she was pregnant. Then she decided it hardly mattered; things were far past that point anyway.

Laurel closed her eyes and focused on taking deep, even breaths. She was almost as nervous as when she’d been preparing for the early labor, only this time she couldn’t hold her mother’s hand or even a well-meaning detective’s. This was something she and Oliver really did need to do together, and on their own.

There was a slight tickle at the back of her throat, and she coughed a couple times. The scratchiness seemed to come and go ever since the night she’d gone into labor, but the doctors and nurses assured her it was probably just a bit of soreness or a slight cold at worst. She supposed lying out in the rain for who knew how long was bound to leave her feeling a bit under the weather.

There came a light knock on the doorframe, and Laurel blinked her eyes open. Oliver looked almost the same as when she’d last seen him all those months ago. A little tired, a little sorrowful, a little bit peaceful. Basically, a lot of holding himself together.

Laurel didn’t even have to try to smile. “Hey.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, come on in,” she said with a lazy wave of her hand. “It’s past time, really.”

He crossed the room in a few steps and took the empty chair at her bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. They just didn’t have much in the way of painkillers because of all the people brought in after the explosion, so I screamed myself hoarse during the birth,” she told him, gesturing to her throat.

“Oh. You know, I was wondering why you didn’t quite sound yourself.”

She could see he was striving for a lighter tone.

“Sure you didn’t just forget what I sounded like?”

Oliver shook his head. “I held onto that voice for five years. Six months wasn’t hard.”

Laurel looked down. There were times now, ever since Oliver had first come back, that he nearly overwhelmed her with the intensity he held inside.

“I should probably say I’m sorry that it was that long.”

When she glanced up briefly, he didn’t look angry. He was just watching her.

“I did try calling, but I, uh, couldn’t quite make myself talk.”

Oliver nodded. “I remember.”

“How did you know?”

“Because I have been the person on the other end of that phone call,” he said. “There was, once, I had this opportunity to get in touch with someone. On the island. It wasn’t exactly safe, but I couldn’t help myself. You were the first person I tried.”

Laurel blinked in surprise. “When?”

Oliver smiled ruefully. “It was nearly five years ago now. I couldn’t say anything just like you, even if there was so much I wanted to say.”

She tried searching for some memory, some moment that had slipped past her long ago totally unnoticed, but could come up with nothing. She supposed it didn’t matter. Oliver had found his way back regardless.

“It just starts to feel insurmountable,” Laurel agreed. “The time that’s passed. I convinced myself that the last thing you needed was to be mixed up in this. Or that you wouldn’t want to be. I thought everyone would be so disappointed. And things seemed so dangerous and complicated back home, especially with your mother’s trial and all the anger people had surrounding that.”

“That’s why you left,” he realized, brow furrowed in thought. “You thought if people found out I was the father, they might do something to you and the baby.”

“That was probably what pushed me to do it. I guess I was worried about what people would think in general.” She sighed. “I’m not ashamed of her, I just know I should’ve been more careful. It’s the first thing my father’s bound to say once he gets over the shock. And I just wasn’t ready to face that on my own, so running away…”

She trailed off as a nurse entered the room with Olivia. Her baby was still half-asleep, tired from all the crying she’d done once she was born. Laurel could sympathize.

“I was asked to bring this one back to mommy. Would you like to hold her?”

Laurel sat up a bit straighter in the bed, but as she did so her eyes slid to Oliver. He was staring at Olivia utterly enraptured, like he’d never even seen a baby before.

She didn’t even hesitate in making the call. “Actually, I think daddy wouldn’t mind a turn.”

He looked back at her, seemingly in shock that she would grant that kind of permission. Laurel gave a nod, hoping to encourage him.

“Alright then,” said the nurse. She passed Olivia over slowly, though not as slowly as Oliver was to take her. He looked as though he’d just been handed the most precious thing in the world, which in Laurel’s opinion he had been.

The nurse fussed a bit, showing him how to hold her properly. Oliver let her, even though Laurel was sure he’d have remembered how from Thea. That whole first year after the Queens had brought her home, Oliver hadn’t been able to keep from bragging about his new baby sister. She’d thought it was the sweetest thing, but the look on his face right now was threatening to top it.

There was a long silence once the nurse had left, though it wasn’t exactly an uncomfortable one. Oliver was far too preoccupied with the baby to talk. The more Laurel watched them, the more the guilt at staying silent for so long seemed to eat at her.

Laurel cleared her throat as softly as she could manage. “Oliver, I really am sorry.”

He managed to tear his gaze away from Olivia for a few moments. “Laurel, you’re not the only one who’s ever tried to hide from the people whose opinions matter most to you.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, that sums it up pretty nicely. Where’d you get that one?”

His mouth opened, then closed, and at last he shrugged. “Myself, in a way.”

She decided to let that one go without comment. “I wasn’t just hiding, though. I hid her from you, too. And that wasn’t fair.”

“No, what wasn’t fair was that I left you to deal with this alone. You tried to reach me, and I didn’t listen.”

“I didn’t try reaching out to my father or Joanna or anyone actually in the city, either,” she pointed out.

“Six months ago no one in the city would have been happy to hear about this. With mom’s trial and Queen Consolidated about to collapse, they would never have left you alone.” Oliver shook his head. “You were doing what you had to to keep her safe. How could I blame you for that?”

She imagined if she felt up to it and he wasn’t holding their daughter, she’d have jumped into his arms and kissed him. But that was how they’d got into this mess in the first place. Laurel sighed.

“Oliver...you know this doesn’t fix everything that’s happened between us.” She kept her eyes on her hands as they toyed with the edge of her blanket. “If anything, it makes things more complicated.”

“I know,” he agreed quietly. “And I know it’s always been complicated. But I swear to you, Laurel, I am ready for that this time.”

She looked up at him and was briefly stunned by the conviction in his eyes, the promise there, the way he held Olivia so securely like he could protect her from anything. But a part of her still had to ask, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can’t afford not to be. Being Olivia’s father, it’s not something that I could back out of or run away from. You both deserve more than that.”

Laurel wanted to believe him. She always did.

She cleared her throat yet again and asked, “Okay, so...where do we go from here?”

“Well, we both know about her now. And we both want to be her parents.”

Laurel nodded. “I think that’s about as far as we should define that relationship. At least for now.”

“You don’t want—”

“I don’t want to rush into something only for it to fall apart and cause some kind of split,” she explained. “Olivia needs us. That has to come before anything else.”

Oliver blew out a breath but didn’t argue. “I still need you in my life. The both of you.”

“And so do we,” she replied, hoping to assure him.

He smiled and relaxed in his chair a little more. “I guess the big question is whether that’s here or in Starling.”

Laurel frowned. “Oliver, you can’t just pack up and move. You’re running Queen Consolidated.”

“I could commute,” he offered stubbornly. “Whatever is best for you and the baby.”

He really was something else sometimes. “Your whole family’s in Starling,” she began slowly. “And...I miss my dad. I miss Joanna, I miss my life. It’s time for me to be a big girl about this. Time to go back.”

“If you’re sure.”

She nodded once.

“Okay.” A smile spread across his face as Olivia gurgled something only intelligible to her. He bounced his knee lightly, which their daughter seemed to like. Laurel wasn’t sure she could remember smiling this much in the longest time, but she also didn’t think she could stop.

“I guess I need to make some calls,” Oliver said, regret coloring his tone. “Your dad was the one to send me down here. And mom and Thea don’t know anything yet. Is it okay if—”

She didn’t even let him finish. “Of course. Olivia’s their family, too.”

“Thank you.” He kissed the top of Olivia’s head and stood, carefully passing the baby to her arms. She couldn’t deny being greedy to hold her again, even if she’d been the one to suggest Oliver get a chance.

“I will be right back.” Oliver paused, then slowly brushed some of her hair back to press the lightest kiss to her cheek.

Laurel couldn’t help smiling up at him as he pulled away and left the room.

“So, what do you think?” She asked her baby. “That was your daddy. He loves you. He only found out about you yesterday, and he already loves you. That’s how special you are.”

Olivia blinked and gurgled again, about the extent of her review. Laurel nodded along very seriously.

“In a little while you’re gonna meet the rest of your grandparents and your Aunt Thea. And they’re all going to love you too, of course.” She hoped, anyway. Oliver’s family she could count on. Laurel was still incredibly nervous about seeing or even speaking to her dad again.

Whatever happened, she was going to make sure Olivia was surrounded by people who did care about her. Laurel never wanted her daughter to ever question if she was wanted.

It wouldn’t be easy going home, but the fact was that it was her home. She had felt torn about leaving it in the first place, but now that most of the anger towards the Queens had died down it seemed unimaginable to even think of raising her daughter anywhere else. 

After all, if the Hood could make a comeback in Starling City, why couldn’t she?

She could take her time in finding work that would both help her new family and others now that she knew Oliver was behind her on this. Laurel had no intention of taking advantage of the Queens’ money, but she wouldn’t deny the relief at knowing she wasn’t under so much pressure. Maybe it wasn’t in quite the way she’d ever pictured, but they were a team once again. Laurel tried to quash the bubble of hope that was determinedly rising inside; one thing at a time, and Olivia was first.

“I’ll get to spend more time with you than I thought I’d be able to,” she told her daughter. “Never mind that you’re here a whole two months early.”

Olivia made a sort of humming sound. Her eyes were drifting closed, and Laurel knew she probably ought to enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted. Once Olivia was asleep, she’d put her to bed and get that water she’d been craving. She hadn’t wanted to bother Oliver for one while he was here and cause him to worry. She’d troubled the people she cared about far too much already these past few months.

“We’ll make sure you get plenty of time with your dad, too. You will love him. I know I do.” She leaned in close with a grin and whispered, “But that’s our little secret, okay?”

—-

Oliver left the room and immediately wanted to re-enter it. It felt wrong to be without Laurel and Olivia. But there were things that needed taken care of. If he wanted to have a secure plan in place for his daughter, he could put aside his own feelings for the time being.

And it was important to get ahead of the media. The minute they touched back down in Starling with a baby in tow there was bound to be talk, and that was not how Oliver wanted the rest of his friends and loved ones to find out.

Olivia was going to be in the spotlight almost from the beginning of her life. He could understand Laurel’s desire to get away from that during her pregnancy, and for a moment he wondered whether it was wise to give up that anonymity. But he didn’t want to hide either of them away like some dirty secret, a separate part of his life.

So many people he wanted to and truthfully needed to speak to. A part of him wanted to shout the news from the rooftops. Another part of him knew that would be the stupidest option possible.

With great difficulty, the more rational side of his mind won out, and he contemplated who to call first. Oliver’s first instinct was his own family, but he had come here initially on Quentin Lance’s behalf.

Decision made at last, he took out his phone and dialed.

Lance was slow to pick up, but as soon as he did he was asking, “How’s Laurel? Is the baby alright?”

“I just finished talking to Laurel. And I have seen your granddaughter. Congratulations.”

“A girl. Well, can’t have too many of those, huh?” Lance let out something of a chuckle that turned into a light cough. Oliver heard him take a sip of what he hoped was water before the question came. “What’d Laurel name her?”

Oliver paused there. It was Lance’s right to know his granddaughter’s name, but he deserved an explanation first.

“Officer Lance, there’s something I need to tell you. But I’m not sure how.”

Again, Oliver hesitated.

He heard the man give some kind of groaning exhale. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the father.”

“...Yes.” There was no point denying it.

“And you- you didn’t know before you took off for wherever?”

“No,” Oliver said immediately. “I wouldn’t have left in the first place if I’d known.”

Lance thankfully let that drop for the moment. “Let’s see, nine months back — well, no wonder she thought I’d be upset.”

“It’s not like that. The baby is two months premature,” Oliver informed him. This was something he knew was bound to come up in the media upon their return home, and if he could spare Laurel any grief over her own father’s assumptions, he would. “I don’t know how much Laurel said, but shortly before he died Tommy broke up with her and moved out. It wasn’t until a few weeks after that we—”

“Alright, alright, spare me the details, I get it,” Lance grumbled. “But, uh, thanks. I- I should know her better than that.”

“I’m sure Laurel knows this hasn’t been easy for you.”

“Is she coming home?”

“She wants to.”

He heard Lance let out a breath over the phone. “Good. I — that’s good.” There was another pause. “And are you two…”

“We’re not making a decision on that right now.”

“Well, where’re Laurel and the baby gonna live?”

Oliver blinked. That wasn’t an issue he’d thought to address till now. “We haven’t discussed it. I’d prefer if they came to stay at the Manor, though. It’s less accessible to the press and others.” He’d have to be careful about wording that invitation; the last thing he wanted was Laurel to think he was trying to trap her into a de facto relationship.

“Yeah, well it’s got a better record for break-ins than her apartment. I’ll try and talk her round.”

“Thank you.” Oliver still wasn’t exactly used to Lance being this helpful. It was a new enough change that it caught him off guard from time to time.

“Hey, if my girls are coming back to this crazy town, they’re getting the best,” Lance said. There was the muffled sound of someone on the other end of the line; most likely a nurse or other hospital staff. “Listen, I should be out of here in the next day or so. I’m gonna try.”

“Take as long as you need. We’ll be here.”

“What did Laurel call her? The baby.”

“Oh. Olivia. Olivia Dinah.”

Lance huffed out another laugh. “See why you wanted to square things first, then. Wouldn’t have needed my old badge to figure that out.”

Oliver grimaced. “Well, you deserved the truth.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell Laurel that, will you?”

“I will.”

One down, and he wasn’t even sure if it was the toughest. He’d survived being on the end of Lance’s disapproval many times; he wasn’t sure if he could do the same when it came to his own family.

But he also needed his family with him on this. So he made his second call.

This time, it was picked up sooner. “Oliver?”

“Yeah, mom.”

“How is Laurel?”

“She’s good.” He thought of her back in that room holding their little girl, a tired but no less radiant look on her face, and had to resist the urge yet again to go back in. “She’s really great.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You never actually told us where you were going, sweetheart,” his mother reminded him after a pause.

Oh. “Right. I’m at Central City General. Laurel was staying with her mom. But she’s okay. It wasn’t anything with the explosion. It’s, well.”

Oliver took a breath.

“There’s something I need to tell you, and, mom, you might want to sit down.”

“Oliver, is everything alright?”

“It is. It’s not bad news. It’s, well, think of it as sort of a Christmas present I got you.”

“Well, I’m as happy as anyone that Laurel’s been found, but something tells me there’s more to it than that.”

“There is.” He took a deep breath, then said, “You are a grandmother.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

“I know it’s not the best way for this to happen,” he started before she could even begin. “But it still feels right to me. God, you should see her, mom. Actually, you and Thea should come down. You won’t know what hit you.”

“I’m quite familiar with the feeling, actually,” she replied. He could hear the dryness in her tone.

“Right.” Oliver drew in a breath. “I’m not sorry this happened.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think you should be. But a baby is a far different responsibility than anything I can safely say you’ve prepared for. And there’s some choices you’ll have to make.”

Oliver said nothing.

“Does she have a name yet?”

“She does. Olivia Dinah.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Will you and Thea come down to see her?”

“Of course,” his mother said. He released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d still been holding. “Do you want to speak to your sister or shall I?”

“Um.” He thought for a moment. Thea would have endless questions, and he was trying to make each of these calls brief so he could get back. “If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to her when she gets here.”

“I understand. You’re needed elsewhere. And congratulations, Oliver. Being a parent is the most daunting challenge you will ever face — but it’s also the most rewarding.”

He smiled. “Thanks, mom. Hope I haven’t made it too much of the former for you.”

“Oh, you keep me on my toes. Today is no exception.”

“Let me know when you get in. I can’t wait for you both to meet her.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

He ended the call, not entirely sure how he was feeling. Happy that his family would be meeting their newest member, of course, but he’d also been given a lot to think about.

His mother was right. If he wanted to keep his promise to Laurel, he needed to make her and Olivia his first priority. Not the company, not the Arrow, nothing was more important to him. There were going to need to be some changes in his life.

With that in mind, he knew he had one more call to make. Oliver was unsurprised when he only had to wait seconds for it to be picked up.

“So what happened? Thea said you went to see Laurel.”

“I did. I would have told you myself, Digg, but it was important I get here as soon as possible.”

“And she was in Central. She alright?”

Oliver glanced back at her and Olivia’s room and nodded though his friend couldn’t see it. “Yeah.”

“Are you?”

He blinked. “Yeah, of course.”

“You just sound like you’re reeling, Oliver.” Even over the phone, Digg could read him.

“If I am, it’s because I am happy,” he stated firmly. “I’m — Laurel was pregnant. That’s why she left.”

He heard a heavy exhale on the other end of the line. “Oh man, Oliver—”

“I know. I know, John, I screwed up. But we’re going to give this a try. I need to give this a try. This is...this is my family now.”

Diggle was quiet for a long moment. “What are you gonna do?”

“Laurel and I are discussing it. She wants to come back. As much as her mother has been there for her through this, Starling is her home. And I cannot picture raising a family anywhere else.”

“And what’s this mean for your night job?”

Oliver thought. He didn’t feel like getting into an argument with Digg on the phone. And a hospital corridor really wasn’t the place. “That is something I will have to discuss with you and Felicity when I get back.”

“Alright. Well, speaking of Felicity, you mind doing her a favor while you’re there? She found Barry in the hospital records.”

“Barry?” Oliver blinked, looking around as if expecting the scientist to suddenly appear in the maternity ward of all places.

“Yeah, he got checked in after the explosion. He’s in the ICU, but that’s all she can find out from here.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He remembered Dinah mentioning Laurel’s early labor was being put down to the shock from the particle accelerator explosion; it was a miracle that nothing else had happened to her or Olivia. Apparently Barry had not been so lucky.

“Do you want me to tell her?”

He pulled himself back out of his thoughts. “Tell who what?”

“Felicity. About the baby.”

He hadn’t really put much thought into that, how more than this immediate circle would find out. Felicity was a friend and teammate, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate learning about it with the rest of the public when they returned.

“If I’m not back within the week to talk to her myself, then yes. I would be grateful if you told her.”

“And what are you going to tell Laurel?”

Oliver didn’t bother to suppress an eye roll considering his friend couldn’t see it. “One thing at a time, John.” It was clear Digg wasn’t going to be willing to let the issue of the Arrow drop anytime soon. “Look, I’ll make sure we get back as soon as we can.”

“Alright. Well, for what it’s worth, congratulations.”

A smile was pulled from him only somewhat grudgingly. “Thank you.”

He hung up for the final time and rubbed at his temples. He had family coming in, friends pressing him for answers, and a hospitalized acquaintance to check on. Oliver wished not for the first time that he could freeze the varied moving parts of his life in place if only for a few moments of peace.

One part of his life stood out in particular: the Arrow. He knew what his teammates would want him to decide. It would hardly have changed since their trip to retrieve him from the island two months ago. But was juggling that with the company and a new baby even feasible? And that was only the least of his misgivings.

What he had told John and Felicity was still true; he did not like what he became whenever he put on that hood. And to go out there threatening or even torturing people, risking his life again and again — could he bring that back home to Laurel and their baby? He didn’t think he knew how to be the father Olivia deserved if he forced himself to go back there every single night.

The mirakuru was something from the island. That made it his responsibility. He could not in good conscience sit by and let the man in the skull mask spread that horror through his city. But once he was stopped…

Oliver let his mind drift back to a time very similar, when he’d thought Malcolm Merlyn outmaneuvered and his mission near an end. How he’d gone to Laurel to finally make things right between them, a union that had resulted in a daughter.

It was a life he could have only dreamed of on the island and a life now so very nearly in his grasp. Ever since the Undertaking, he had felt adrift when it came to his vigilante work, without purpose. Was it really so selfish to just let go? Allow the legal system due course? Wasn’t it his vigilantism that had caused so many of the problems the city now faced?

He could not be Oliver Queen, father, and the Arrow, dark vigilante. Those two identities pulled at each other, and he could not hope to maintain both. And if one had to go at the expense of the other, there was not a choice to make.

His feet, which had been slowly carrying him down the hall to the elevators, stopped and turned back towards Laurel and Olivia’s room. Barry could wait for the time being; he no doubt had family of his own who wouldn’t appreciate an interloper. And Oliver had his family along with — for the first time in so long — a future.

It was time to think about truly living in the light.

—-

Quentin hadn’t known what to say when the fancy black car had pulled up in front of the hospital once he was finally allowed out of the doors. Queen’s bodyguard had gotten out of the driver seat and opened the side door for the family’s matriarch.

“I believe we’re headed in the same direction, Officer.” Moira Queen had looked as refined as he remembered her being before all the Undertaking business. He wondered if news of the baby had even ruffled her feathers for a moment.

“Suppose so, but, uh, I’ve got to pick up some things at my place. I’m not packed.”

“Of course. There’s certainly enough time to make a detour.” She gestured with one arm for him to get in, which he had a feeling was not exactly up for debate. It beat hailing a cab, anyway.

Quentin discovered almost immediately upon sliding in that Thea Queen was also waiting in the backseat, though across from him. Her mother placed herself at her side and once the driver had gotten back in they were off.

“Have you gotten to talk to Laurel yet?” The girl asked him.

“No,” he answered shortly. Quentin wasn’t sure why he’d been holding off exactly. Maybe it’d just be easier to do it face to face. Maybe it wasn’t going to be easy at all and he was just putting it off for as long as possible. Maybe he hadn’t figured out what he was going to say in the first place.

When they arrived outside his building, he waved off any assistance in packing. Wasn’t like he was lifting anything heavy. He threw the first few shirts and pants he came across in his dresser into a bag along with various other necessities, then made his way back out front to the car. 

They were soon on their way after that to the airport. Quentin had been planning to take the train seeing as it’d be cheaper, but he had a feeling his expenses were being covered.

The youngest Queen — or second-youngest, now — was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. Hard to believe around this time last year Thea Queen had been a girl spiraling into hard substance abuse, yet now she ran a business and was an aunt.

“They didn’t send you any pictures, did they?”

It took him a moment to realize it was him she was talking to. “Uh, no.”

She shrugged, not too upset by his answer. “Figures. Ollie says he wants us to see Olivia in person first.”

“Trust me, Thea, it will be worth it,” said Mrs. Queen. “There’s really no experience like it. I still remember when Oliver came to meet you like it was yesterday.”

Quentin thought he knew what she meant. Laurel hadn’t understood too well what had been happening, having been all of two, but she had been very excited to go see her mom in the hospital. He had placed her on his lap and then had taken Sara in his arms to show her how she was to hold her baby sister. Laurel had listened with a very serious expression as he’d explained that she was a big girl now and needed to be responsible and set a good example for the baby, that he and Dinah would need her help around the house more now that there was another infant to look after. She’d been a toddler without tantrums from that moment on, and Quentin had felt so proud back then.

Now he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. He’d always put so much on her shoulders, hadn’t he?

“Quentin.”

He blinked his eyes open. Mrs. Queen was watching him carefully.

“I hope that’s alright. It occurs to me that we’re all something of a family now.” Her smile turned slightly chagrined. “I’ve had my share of harsh words to say this past year, but I wouldn’t want that to get in the way of things. Not for your daughter or our granddaughter.”

Well, jail time certainly hadn’t dimmed her regal way of doing things, had it? Quentin inclined his head. “Your son isn’t the person he used to be. I’m ready to let things stay in the past so long as he keeps doing things right.”

“And that is more than fair of you.” She leaned forward in her seat just slightly. “While it’s not exactly the way I would have preferred it to happen, I had always hoped Laurel would officially become part of the family. She’s far better for Oliver than I think she realizes.”

“She’s better for most people, yeah.” He watched the woman — Moira, he guessed, if they really were doing this whole family thing — smile at his words.

“We’re here!” Thea Queen was unbuckling her seatbelt before they’d even pulled up to the curb and had the door open quicker than Queen’s bodyguard could get to it.

He instead unloaded both women’s luggage from the trunk and passed Quentin his bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along, Mr. Diggle?”

“Thank you, ma’am, but Oliver asked me to keep an eye on things while he was gone,” the man answered. “Somebody’s got to head up the welcome wagon when they bring her back, anyway.”

Moira nodded. “Well, make sure to take some time for yourself and your family for the holidays.”

“I will, ma’am. Thank you.”

He tried to get some sleep on the plane, but his mind didn’t seem to want to quiet down. It was like all he could do was count down the remaining minutes and miles separating him from Laurel and the baby. He still couldn’t think of what to say.

They got a taxi from the Central City airport to the hospital. Quentin didn’t think he’d ever get used to this sort of VIP treatment, family or no.

None of them had Laurel’s room number. He should have thought to ask when he’d had Queen — well, Oliver — on the phone. Moira enquired at the front desk, which was just as well since she didn’t look like her nerves were all shot to hell the way his were, and was soon leading them to an elevator and down the corridor of Central City General’s maternity ward.

In the final steps his mind seemed to draw a complete blank, and anything he might have prepared flew right out of his head. Quentin cleared the doorway and stopped, Thea Queen nearly colliding with his back.

“Oliver,” Moira was saying. Her son had looked up at their entrance and moved to greet her. In a chair by the vacant bed, Dinah smiled and gave a wave with the hand that wasn’t cradling a little bundle to her chest.

But Quentin only had eyes for the room’s remaining occupant. His daughter.

She turned slowly to face them, her eyes meeting his for the briefest moment before dropping to the floor.

He managed to force out past the lump in his throat. “Laurel.”

Quentin watched as she bit her lip, then raised her head once again. “Dad.”

He swayed forward a step the same time as she took one and then in a blink his daughter was in his arms.

“I’m sorry. Dad, I really — I’m so sorry,” Laurel was gasping in his ear. She was clutching onto his jacket as if she feared any moment he might push her away. The realization started a stinging sensation behind his eyes.

“Laurel- honey, listen to me.” As gratifying as it was to know that she’d considered what she might have put him through, he knew if he didn’t get these words out now, he never would. “ _ I’m _ sorry.”

Her grip slackened and she pulled back to look at him. “What?”

“You didn’t feel like you could count on me, and I — well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know why.” He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “There’s a lot of how I’ve treated you the last five years that I’ve been thinking about since you left, and I’m not proud of it.”

She was shaking her head. “Dad—”

“Just- just let me finish. Now, I’m not happy you did what you did, but if I’d been better to you maybe you wouldn’t have done it. And none of that changes the fact that I am just so,  _ so _ relieved to know you’re safe and you’re coming home.”

She hugged him again and he held on tight, trying his damndest not to actually cry in front of all these people. Sure, they were all family now, but he wasn’t about to let them see that.

After a long moment, Laurel pulled back and wiped at her eyes. “Would you like to meet your granddaughter?”

He felt his breath hitch and could only nod. Laurel smiled and turned away to the others. The Queens were all stood in a huddle around Dinah, who had passed the little bundle to Oliver. He left the group and stepped forward without needing to be asked.

“Olivia, this is your grandfather,” he said to the baby in his arms. Quentin found himself leaning forward without even thinking about it, desperate to get a better look.

She was small, so much smaller than either of his girls had been. He was almost afraid to take her, she looked so fragile.

“And she’s healthy, right? Even without the two months?”

“Uh-huh,” Laurel answered. “Actually, the doctors said it’d be riskier to delay things once my water broke.”

Quentin found one of her tiny fists just poking out of the blanket she was wrapped in and laid his hand over it. “But look at her! Look what you did. Oh, she’s beautiful, honey.”

He didn’t realize he was swaying slightly until someone caught his arm. That someone turned out to be Oliver.

“Officer Lance?”

“Dad, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a little unsteady on my feet still, I guess.”

Laurel and Oliver were on either side of him, leading him to sit in the vacated chair.

“Mom said you were in for a checkup,” Laurel said, an audible frown in her voice.

“Well, we couldn’t have you worrying while we were still waiting for news about Olivia’s health,” Dinah answered for herself.

“I’m taking things easy, and I’m on medication,” Quentin tried again to dismiss. “Got a little worked up is all. Hard not to, meeting my first grandchild and all.”

“I think she’s gonna end up with Ollie’s eyes,” Thea declared, seeming to sense the need for a distraction. “I mean I know most babies start with blue, but they’re just so pretty. And she’s definitely got your nose, Laurel.” She turned and embraced Quentin’s daughter, her eyes squeezing shut as she added, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Thea,” Laurel murmured back. “I missed you guys so much.”

“It really is nice to have everyone here,” Dinah said as she watched them. Then her smile faltered. “Almost everyone.”

Quentin could only stare. Sara. Sara didn’t know. She was out there hiding from that awful League, never dreaming she was an aunt.

Those five years he’d thought Sara dead, Quentin had acted as though the world had stopped. Life couldn’t go on without one of his girls, could it? But here was the proof that it  _ had _ gone on. And she was missing it!

He had to get her away from those people, for her sake as well as the rest of them. Olivia shouldn’t have to know the kind of grief they’d been feeling for a daughter who wasn’t dead. Dinah and Laurel had both suffered so much over it, and Quentin himself was only beginning to try and recover. Sara needed to be here at home, where she belonged, no matter what some cult of killers said.

No matter what, his family was going to be together again.

—-

There had been very few times in the last six years Moira had ever truly felt at peace. This was one of those times.

Things had quieted down for the most part. The Lances had gone to Dinah’s home in order to start packing their daughter’s things along with the scant baby supplies that had been bought. Laurel had gone for a walk around the hospital for a bit of exercise and to stretch her legs, which Oliver had offered to accompany her on. He’d claimed a need to check on another of the hospital’s patients before Laurel was able to do more than protest she didn’t need a babysitter.

Moira shook her head to herself. Whether or not her son’s excuse had been legitimate, she had a feeling he’d be sticking as close to Laurel as his schedule allowed from now on. Their daughter was only bound to heighten his protective instincts. He was too much like her that way, Moira was willing to admit.

Her baby boy had grown up long ago, but she wasn’t sure the truth of it had hit her until this exact moment.

Olivia had been left in her and Thea’s care for the moment, and Moira cradled the new baby in her arms the same way she’d done both her children, marveling at the innocence with which a baby saw the world. Well, Olivia wasn’t strictly seeing it at the moment, being fast asleep, but the innocence was there all the same.

There would be a lot of questions upon their return. She’d need to talk to Oliver and possibly Jean about how they wanted to handle the inevitable media storm. Their options on how to spin their story were somewhat limited.

Moira of course respected Oliver and Laurel’s decision at the moment to not be romantically involved. It was the mature thing to do for Olivia’s sake. She did also worry, particularly for Laurel, how the public might perceive the arrangement.

And she was well aware of what her son truly desired.

“I want to do things right this time,” he’d confessed to her while the others had all been occupied elsewhere. “No matter how long it takes. So I want you to know, mom, that someday — I don’t know when yet — I am going to ask you if I can have your engagement ring. And I hope you’ll say yes.”

“Well, sweetheart, nothing would make me happier than to see you with a family of your own. And I admire your commitment.” She’d pursed her lips and continued, “If you’d allow me a piece of advice — however qualified I am to give it —  _ nothing  _ is more important to a relationship than honesty. The more secrets you keep, the less able your partner is to rely on you or be relied upon, no matter how much they might want to. I know the lies are what cost me Walter.”

Oliver had nodded solemnly and said a quiet, “Thank you, mom.”

Only time would tell if he heeded her words. Moira wasn’t exactly doing so herself at the moment, either, but she’d resigned herself to her vices. It wasn’t too late for Oliver to break his. He’d already done so with Thea, and she knew the happiness he sought with Laurel would only come once he opened himself fully to her. Even if his fears were pushing him to do the opposite.

“I wish dad could’ve been here for this.”

Moira looked up sharply, but the meaning behind Thea’s words caught up to her just in time. She schooled her alarmed expression into one of calm and understanding.

“I know, sweetheart. I doubt Robert could have ever been prouder.”

Of course her mind was now, as it ever seemed to be, on Malcolm.

She had yet to hear from him since their last confrontation and could only hope he was far away evading the League he had abandoned. Perhaps it was too much to hope that he had gone so thoroughly to ground that news of Olivia would never reach him.

But the balance had shifted. Moira had now added far more to her family, far more vulnerable spots that could be exploited.

How might Malcolm use her granddaughter against her, this fragile newborn life? What if he tried to steal her away the way he felt she’d stolen Thea? What if he killed Oliver out there one night to deprive this baby of her father?

She could only hope this Ra’s al Ghul would be enough of a deterrent, at least until she could come up with another plan. Regardless, she would protect this child as she did all her children with whatever she had to her last breath.

Olivia slept on in her arms, blissfully innocent and unaware. Moira kissed the top of her head, vowing to shield her from Malcolm better than she had her father.

“Thea, do you mind holding her for a minute? I think I could do with some air.”

“Yeah, course mom.” Thea took Olivia eagerly, cooing at her and making faces. It was hard to remember that her daughter wasn’t just as innocent as the baby, though both were totally unknowing of the danger that hung over them all like a shadow. She almost couldn’t bear to watch, and she turned and left the little room.

The walls were closing in, and not for the first time Moira wondered if she hadn’t been better off in prison.

—-

He looked up as the door banged open, but didn’t even bother to reach for a weapon.

“That’s not the behavior I’d expect from Starling City’s mayoral candidate.”

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian Blood wheezed. He took a moment to collect his breath and straightened. “But Daily’s information is correct. Officer Lance left for Central yesterday to see his daughter. She’s just given birth.”

“Has she?” He thought for a moment. Not exactly the answer he’d been expecting, but if,  _ if  _ there was a chance—

“And it was just her father going to see her?”

“No.” Sebastian gave one form shake of his head. “He was seen leaving the hospital with the Queen family.”

He felt...something. Not happiness — no, he had not known happiness for some time, and doubtless he never would again. This was certainty. Certainty that he had just won.

“This is good news.” Surprising, perhaps, but undoubtedly good.

He’d had his theories as to Miss Lance’s disappearance and whether or not Oliver was aware of the reason. It seemed now that he had been, though he wondered as to the man he had once thought of as a friend’s reasoning in revealing her whereabouts along with the child’s, no less. He had seen the mirakuru in use in his own city and seemingly decided it was no serious threat.

That was his own folly.

“You really think we can use this to stop the Arrow?” Sebastian asked, drawing him back into the present.

“The Arrow cares for Miss Lance a great deal. Her child will be afforded the same care, there is no question.”

He watched as Sebastian’s lips curved into the slightest frown. “Should I prepare my men for an attack?”

He held up a hand. “No. Give the new family time with their child.” It was better that way. Let Oliver have just a taste of the happiness he had denied Slade, only for it all to be ripped away when he least expected it. Then and only then he might do his one-time brother the mercy of ending his suffering.

Sebastian seemed relieved. He’d formed a curious friendship with Oliver. It was nothing of concern as of yet, and Sebastian would follow his orders so long as Slade gave him his promised city.

“Leave me,” he said, and watched the man scurry from his sight.

Now alone, Slade Wilson allowed a smile to stretch across lips that had had no reason to smile for years. So Oliver thought he was safe? That he was allowed peace,  _ love _ , a family of his own?

The arrogant fool.


End file.
